Bury the Hatchet
by TheDarkerSide123
Summary: After the Governor destroys the prison, Carl is left alone. That is until he meets another boy. Colder than Carl himself, Zeke is a boy broken down and reformed by the world around him. Haunted by ghosts of his past, he is at war with himself. Together the boys forge a bond that may just help Zeke bury the hatchet and make peace with himself and help Carl face his demons as well.
1. Away

**Hello there, Internet. This is my first attempt at a Walking Dead fic... So bear with me here. I've wanted to do a story like this for a while now. It is a romance(between Carl and my OC), but I warn you it will probably be sort of slow-burning. There are going to be homosexual relations in here, so if that's not your thing you should probably not read. Also, I did something that's kind of taboo when it comes to The Walking Dead. This story takes place after the second attack on the prison, and I may have sort of... killed Rick.**

 **So, with that happy thought in mind, on to the story! Reviews, favorites, and follows are all much appreciated so that I know someone out there is actually reading this.**

* * *

 **(Carl's POV)**

Alone.

That's what I had been for hours now. I only knew that by occasionally glancing up and noticing the sun's position in the sky. Hell, it certainly hadn't felt like hours. More like days, spent in suffocating silence. Well, not real silence, since there was always some form of sound, like my shoes scuffing the ground or leaves being blown across the street, even the odd groan of a walker here and there. Yet the weight of the quiet was still crushing me, or maybe it was more so the lack of another person to share my space.

I had buried my father in the backyard of the house we were at. The house where he _died._ I marked his grave by arranging a small "R" out of stones. I thought about leaving something of his behind, but it's not like I had much to work with. Either his gun's holster, or the revolver itself, and someone was liable to steal either of those things if they came across one of them. Part of me doesn't even know why I bothered with the stones. It's not like I would ever get to go back and visit him. That very thought caused a pang of sorrow to clutch my heart tightly, but I swallowed my despair, continuing to walk along the road that I was on.

I had moved on as soon as I had finished paying my respects, not wanting to stay in that place for a second longer than I had to. That brought me to where I was now, aimlessly stumbling along the road that had led out of the neighborhood. The white bag that Dad and I had found at Joe and Joe Jr's bar, and had been using to carry supplies, was hanging off of my back by the strap. It was actually fairly full, with provisions and my gun and its holster. I made a resolution to find an actual backpack of some sort when I got the chance. My pistol was out of ammo, so until I found more I was using the .44 magnum. And I was wearing Dad's holster because... Well, it just wouldn't feel right putting his gun in mine. Stupid and sentimental, I know, but I couldn't help it. Somehow it made it feel like if I was using his equipment, especially his handgun, he would help me, protect me, from wherever he was. If he was even anywhere in the first place. Jumping onto that train of thought reminded me of when I told Carol she was an idiot for believing in heaven that long time ago back at Hershel's farm. Dad had taken me aside and not only scolded me, but explained why what I said was wrong too. I didn't fully understand it back then, but I sure got it now. It was easier to believe that he was just somewhere else, somewhere peaceful, instead of rotting in the ground where I had put him. Not just him either, the rest of my family too.

 _Oh God,_ I thought to myself, the realization just dawning on me. I was the last Grimes left. I mean it's not that I didn't already know, but it was actually hitting me now. _Mom, Judy, and now Dad... My whole family is dead._ My left hand suddenly flew up to my face, rubbing at my eyes furiously. _Just something in my eyes, just some dust or dirt,_ I lied to myself, trying to shake my head free of all of these damned thoughts. I couldn't think about them now. I just had to keep going. Move on, kill walkers, _survive._ That's how I would honor my family.

The killing walkers part I wasn't exactly up to at the moment though. I just felt so drained of motivation to do anything, avoiding the few walkers that I came across. Most of them saw me, but I just kept walking, sometimes having to sidestep a hungry reanimated corpse. I didn't know what I was doing. I guess in the back of my head I had a plan to just keep walking, putting distance between myself and the place where my father had perished, until I got tired. Then I would find somewhere to hole up for the night. Alone. I wasn't really thinking about it though, not like I should have been. I mean after all, what else did I have to be concerned with now other than my survival? I should have hammered out a solid plan for the day, but I simply didn't care enough to do so.

It's not that I didn't care about my survival. I didn't want to die, and I knew as much. But with what just happened, it was hard for me to want to _live._ It was hard for me to think about it, or put much energy into it at all. My dad dying was different than my less recent loss of my baby sister. That had made me angry, and cold. This had just defeated me. It had left me _alone._ Completely and utterly alone. Now that I thought about it, I had never been alone before now. I had always had a group, had always had at least one of my parents around. _Time to grow up, Carl,_ I thought bitterly to myself, deciding that I liked being mad more than I liked being depressed as I wiped away tears that I didn't even realize had been trailing down my face. I rubbed away whatever pitiful, tired expression I had been wearing on my face before and replaced it with a hard glare.

Now that I had forced myself out of my thoughts once again(hopefully for good this time), I noticed that I was approaching another neighborhood. It wasn't all that different from the one I was at before, mostly white houses lining each side of the street, the majority of the structures themselves not sporting many differences. The only car that I could see was a light blue station wagon with wood paneling on its sides, parked up against the left side of the curb a few houses in. It looked surprisingly intact, none of the windows broken and all of the tires that I could see from where I stood were still inflated. _Too bad I don't know how to drive,_ I thought with a light sigh as I approached the vehicle. Then my eyes widened. _Oh shit... I don't know how to drive. Yup, definitely gonna die,_ I thought sardonically, actually allowing myself a chuckle. My own somewhat morbid joking was suddenly stifled, as I heard a sound that I was unfortunately quite familiar with, coming from the area directly behind the station wagon.

My hand immediately reached back and snatched my dad's revolver out of its holster. I held it out in front of me with both hands, not exactly aiming it in front of me, but not keeping it pointed downwards either. My right thumb rested on the hammer, though it didn't cock it back yet. I took slow, measured steps forward, careful to be as silent as I could manage until I could finally see around the vehicle next to me. I almost wish I couldn't, as it was not exactly the most pleasant thing I had ever seen. Five walkers were knelt down, huddled around a fleshy mass that I _think_ was once a dog. They were making obscene tearing noises as they ripped pieces off of their meal, and even more grotesque sounds as they actually devoured the raw meat. I raised the gun, about to cock the hammer back, when I stopped. I had enough bullets to take down these walkers, but what about after that? I didn't know my exact count, but I sure as hell knew that it wasn't very high. Plus the noise from the shots would just draw more of them, and that could mean I would have to leave this neighborhood before I even got a chance to search it. The walkers started to notice me, hissing and snarling as they slowly and ungracefully stood up.

 _Shit!_ I thought in annoyance, but I was decided on what to do. I holstered the revolver, reaching for my knife. I needed to get better at this anyways. Admittedly, most of the walkers that I killed were ended with firepower. So I would kill as many as I could with my knife, and then only use the gun if I had to.

Just as I had drawn my knife, a simple weapon with a six inch stainless steel blade and a black handle, I froze. The hissing coming from the undead in front of me wasn't the only hissing in the area. There were more of them behind me. I backed up, away from the threat in front of me, quickly turning to the side so that I could see how bad exactly this situation was. Three walkers were coming at me from the direction that I had came from, no doubt remains of all of the corpses that I had avoided on my walk to this neighborhood. I thought that all of them had fallen behind and lost interest, but clearly I was wrong. "Fuck," I muttered under my breath, testing out the expletive on my tongue. I'd never said it before now. _Glad I got to say it once before I die,_ I thought, resolving to stick with my plan to use the knife, despite this new development. Then I headed towards the three walkers, figuring that I could take care of the smaller group faster, and that would make it easier on me when I had to face the other five walkers.

My free hand came up and grabbed a female walker's shoulder. I held it at bay, finding it harder than I expected since we were practically the same size, as I gripped the knife in my other hand and attempted to stab it in the head. This was also more difficult than I thought it would be as the reanimated corpse continued to flail, snarling and snapping as its fingers found purchase on the front of my shirt, trying to pull me forward just as furiously as I was trying to push it back. Finally I was able to drive my knife into its right eye, and as always, it was like hitting a damn shut down button. Unfortunately, this wasn't as good as one might think. I underestimated how hard it would be to retract the blade from the walker's head, so when it turned into a literal dead weight, I, still holding onto both the knife as I tried to free my weapon and the walker's shoulder, was taken down to the ground with it. "Oh, shit," I breathed, my voice panicky. Thankfully it wasn't on top of me, instead laying directly in front of me, both of us on our sides. Regardless, it was still causing me problems, as I had to get my knife and get up before the other walkers closed in on me.

I momentarily shut the groans of the surrounding undead out, solely focusing on the task at hand. Then with one great pull I almost smiled to myself as I heard the signature _shnk_ sound of a blade ripping out of flesh. No time for a victory dance though, I still had seven more walkers to go. Just as I got to my knees, another walker from the smaller group lunged at me. This one was larger than the first, and that combined with its momentum as it hurtled itself at me knocked me to the ground, on my back this time. I could feel its fingernails digging into my shoulders through both of my long-sleeved shirts as it kept a grip like a vice on me. Its teeth clacked as its jaws opened and closed inches from my cheek, ferocious snarls escaping from its mouth in intervals. The only reason it wasn't tearing into my face right now was because I had managed to get my free arm up in time, pushing it against the thing's collarbone just barely hard enough to save my life. I tried to push harder, to shift it to the side and throw it off of me, but to no avail. Hot, rotten breath rolled over my face, and I winced, forcing myself not to turn away. My arm that was wielding the knife was trapped at an awkward angle, pinned against my stomach with the walker's body on top of it. I frantically struggled to yank the limb free, my heartbeat resounding in my ears. It wouldn't be long now before the other walkers reached me. They would kneel down like they had around the dog, and then-

 _No, stop it! You're going to live! You're going to break free, right... NOW!_

Right as I finished giving myself the silent pep talk, I forcefully jolted my arm, and with it my knife, free. Screaming in fury, I stabbed the walker on top of me directly in the forehead. Of course this flattened me to the ground, and I knew now that using my gun was unavoidable. There was no way that I was going to be able to push this corpse off of me or get out from under it in time to dispatch the other walkers with my knife. So I simply left the blade buried in the dead(for good this time) walker's head and reached for my dad's revolver, having managed to already maneuver my arms around the body. A moment later it was aiming at the final walker on my right, and I cocked the hammer back with my thumb.

 _BLAM!_

Sometimes I forgot just how loud this was. I was almost surprised as I watched the walker's head I had been aiming at explode in a gory display of dark, black blood, and fragments of decomposing bone. I mean, I was a good shot and all, but it was a powerful gun and I had only been holding it with one hand. Any relief I had been feeling from hitting the walker soon transformed into annoyance as I watched the body fall forward and land horizontally across the other one that was already on top of me. Then that annoyance promptly turned to fear as I looked to my left and saw the first walker of the group of five looming over me. It began to crouch down, hissing as it looked at me hungrily. "Oh hell no," I growled, turning the revolver onto that one.

 _BLAM!_

With my luck, of course that body had to fall forward and join the other cadavers, furthering the weight that was trapping me. I wasn't going to stay pinned this time though, wriggling around as I attempted to free myself. Little by little, I was able to scoot backwards, out from underneath the bodies. I quickly stood up, the hasty movement causing my sheriff's hat to fall to the pavement since it was already so precariously balanced on my head, continuing to back up as the four remaining walkers were right in front of me now. Four bullets left in my dad's gun for four walkers. Perfect as long as I could get a head shot with each round. I raised the revolver, holding it with both hands this time. Then I started shooting.

I exhaled in relief, lowering the gun in one of my hands after having shot the last walker. My free left hand came up to touch my cheek, and, as I kind of expected, there was dark blood when I pulled it away to look at the palm. Probably from when I had stabbed the walker that was right on top of me, but it didn't really matter. Blood, even walker blood, didn't really bother me anymore. My hand fell back to my side, only for my eyes to widen in horror. Looked like my ordeal wasn't quite over yet.

More walkers, no doubt drawn by sound of gunfire, were coming out of the woods on the other side of the neighborhood, sights already set on me. Rustling from behind me caused me to throw a quick glance over my shoulder, only to confirm what I pretty much already knew. They were coming out of both sides of the woods.

I holstered my dad's revolver quickly, knowing that I didn't have enough ammo to take on all of these walkers, nor did I have the time to reload it. So in other words it was useless to me right now. I snatched my hat off of the street, fitting it on my head as I moved over to the corpse that my knife was still stuck in. I pulled the other bodies off of it, rolling it over onto its back and then wrapping my right hand around the hilt of my knife, quickly tearing it from its place in the thing's skull. Then I started to run up the street that would lead me out of this neighborhood, abandoning my original plan to scavenge it for supplies. Only the universe had other plans.

I was just coming over a small hill in the road, only to nearly run into some walkers that had been going down it. I skidded to a stop right in front of the group of undead, the corpses almost seeming as surprised as I was for a moment. I stood there, staring in terror until they started to growl and snarl for my flesh. "Fuck me and my trigger happy self," I muttered simply before spinning around and running back the way that I had came. Except that wasn't the right answer either. Reanimated corpses were surrounding me, and exactly what I had been trying to avoid by using my knife was happening.

 _Need a plan, need a plan..._ I internally repeated to myself as I desperately looked around for something, anything that would help me out of this situation. Then my eyes locked onto the station wagon. It was a stretch, and assuming I could get there I might end up dying anyways. But it was something, and I needed something at the moment. Plus it could give me a chance to think about my next move once I got there.

So I ran. I didn't stop for anything. Not even when I had to kill a male walker that lurched out in front of me and reached out with cold, claw-like fingers to grab me. I leaped up, the blade of my knife protruding from the bottom of my right fist while my left hand wrapped around that, holding my weapon with both of my hands so that I would have better control. Then gravity played its role and brought my knife piercing down right through the top of the walker's cranium and my shoes met the pavement once again. The corpse fell to its knees, but before it could fall over onto its stomach I withdrew my knife from its brain, this time anticipating how difficult it would be to do so. Thankfully I hadn't let the body bring me down with it this time, because then I definitely would have met a gruesome end. Another walker assaulted me almost immediately after I dispatched its fellow reanimated corpse, but I didn't even try to take the time to kill this one, simply slamming my hands into its abdomen and pushing it as far backwards as I could manage.

 _Almost there!_ I thought, my gaze locking onto the vehicle. It was a good thing too. Now that I was looking at it so intensely, I could see that the doors were all locked by looking in the windows. _Fuck!_

There were way too many walkers around for me to have the time to break a window and let myself inside, so when I neared the vehicle I improvised a plan from the one that I had already formed in my mind. I threw myself onto the roof of the vehicle, the momentum of the hasty action rolling me onto my back, or rather, my bag of supplies since it was luckily still with me despite all of the strenuous movement.

If I had been about to feel relief, it hadn't happened, because almost right after getting to "safety" a large, ugly walker grabbed my free arm with both of its decomposing appendages from its place next to the station wagon, attempting to draw my arm to its gaping, bloody maw. Something between a yelp and a scream emitted from my vocal cords out of my sheer surprise and fear, and for a minute I just struggled in my shock, trying to pull my limb away from the undead ranks that were groaning hungrily as they gathered around the vehicle I was on top of. Then I came to my senses, my hand with the knife coming forward and stabbing the offending walker right where its forehead met its thin, scraggly hair. It released me, but at a price.

I was unable to pull my knife out before the body fell into the crowd, and I was forced to pull my arm back or risk being grabbed by another walker. Great. Now I had an empty gun, and no knife. I had some ammo, but it wouldn't make a difference anyways with them all crowded around me like this, and I couldn't risk reloading, it would take too long. Oh, and I couldn't forget the fact that I was trapped. So basically was I not only irrevocably fucked two different ways, no, you could go ahead and make it three.

I stood up, trying to stand in the middle of the roof to avoid both sides of undead limbs hungrily reaching out for me. It didn't help much, and I still ended up constantly kicking at rotting fingers and hands to stop them from grabbing onto me. I couldn't keep this up forever. I needed a new plan, but whenever I looked up for more than a second to try and survey the area I had to quickly look back down again as I felt a hand snatching at my pant leg or shoe.

 _Come on, Carl... You made it this far, now you just need..._ Fuck, this was bad. So bad that I couldn't even pep talk myself because I had no clue what to do. _Dad would know what to do..._ I thought somberly. Then I felt myself get frustrated.

 _You said you'd be fine if he died. Time to live up to that,_ I thought bitterly to myself, remembering when I said that to my then unconscious dad. I was going to prove myself right. I was _not_ going to be torn apart by some undead assholes just hours after burying my father. Hadn't I just established that the best way to honor my deceased family was to keep on going?!

Ironically enough, between my thoughts and my halfhearted attempts at searching for a way out of this, I was too distracted and a walker finally managed to get a good grip around one of my legs, pulling it out from under me and causing me to fall face first onto the roof of the station wagon. My mouth connected with metal, and even through the adrenaline that was rushing around inside of my body, the hit smarted and I could taste blood welling up around my tongue. No time to let pain distract me though, and I didn't hesitate in lashing out, kicking with my free leg as I tried to retract the other one. "No, no, no!" I cried, panicking. It wasn't working, nothing was. My palms flattened against the windshield of the vehicle, and I applied pressure as I tried to push myself forward, away from the walkers that had a hold of me. Of course that was only a temporary solution, as the farther away I got from one side of walkers, the closer I got to another since the tumble I had taken laid me out diagonally across the roof. I ended up raising one arm to fend off the hands that tried to grab my face and hair, trying not to think about how hopeless this situation was.

Then suddenly I heard the sound of metal slicing through skin, flesh and bone, almost inaudible because of all of the snarling and moaning of the dead surrounding me, but unmistakable nonetheless. The walkers that were gathered around the station wagon, around _me,_ began to disperse. Not all of them, but slowly more and more of them began to walk towards something, or rather someone, I realized. Who would take on a pack of walkers with a melee weapon? From what I could hear, it appeared to be only one person. I didn't try to fool myself into thinking that it was Michonne, because the sound of the kills somehow lacked the elegance of the noises that her sword had made when it was slicing through a walker's skull or piercing its brain, but whoever it was sure as hell shared her confidence. That or they were insane. I was grateful either way, but I couldn't be bothered to think about that anymore because I still needed to free myself from the oppressing hands of the walker that just _would not_ release me.

With one final, great heave, I wrenched my leg away from the walkers, wasting no time in jumping back up to my feet. Now that the concentration of the dead had greatly lessened around the station wagon, I could afford to reload my dad's revolver. So I did just that, one of my hands pulling it from its holster while my other hand dug into the front pocket of my jeans, scrounging around for what little ammunition I had left. I looked at my findings, disappointed to see that I only had six bullets rolling around in the palm of my hand. Enough to fill the revolver, but after I used it I was stuck using my knife until I could get more. After this little excursion I wasn't exactly tempted to try my luck at stabbing any more walkers in the head, but I couldn't just stand here and leave someone who may have very well just saved my life to face the walkers alone. I opened the cylinder of the revolver, the six shell casings of the bullets I had fired earlier clinking against the roof of the station wagon as they fell out, and then I went about slotting each bullet into its place before snapping the gun closed again. My left hand rolled over the hammer, cocking it back, and I didn't wait to aim and take fire.

My bullet hit a walker that was standing up against the station wagon, arms outstretched and fists repeatedly opening and closing as it reached for me, right in the forehead, spraying shards of skull and bloody, rotted brain matter out of the back of its head. I picked that one because I judged that it wasn't too far away from where my knife was buried in a walker's head, so I needed it out of the way. By the time I heard the telltale thud of its corpse hitting the ground with all of the gracefulness of a sack of potatoes, I was already moving, leaping down off of the roof of the vehicle.

I brought the revolver up again, in only my right hand this time with my body shifted to the side, just how dad always used to hold it, and fired two more shots, both of the walkers' heads that I had been aiming for erupting into geysers of gore. Then I quickly spun around, popping off another two rounds, though this time at the undead that had been behind me. Two more corpses hit the pavement. Now that I had some time, I reached down and grasped the handle of my knife, extracting it from where it was in a cadaver's brain, holding it in my left hand this time instead of my dominant right one. I would switch that after I had fired the last bullet in the revolver.

 _BLAM!_

Done. I slipped the revolver into its holster, tossing my knife to my right hand with a single, fluid motion. Taking the time to assess the battleground, I realized that the majority of the pack of walkers were after the stranger, and he(at least I think it was a he from the glimpses I was catching of him; I didn't have the time to really look him over after all) was certainly holding his own. Bodies that bared the telltale signs of having died two deaths littered the street, most of them missing a piece of their heads, but a few only had deep gashes cleaved through their craniums. If that didn't make it clear that he didn't need my immediate assistance, then I don't know what would.

So I turned my attention onto the few walkers that were behind me, split up from the main group and more spread out, they would be more fitting targets for my lack of melee experience and I. Time to figure out how much my recent series of mishaps had taught me about stabbing a reanimated corpse in the head. The first one was a good bit taller than me, so after I had moved to be in front of it and it was charging at me, I let it come to me. I even assisted it, grabbing a fistful of its shirt in my free hand and pulling it forward, jabbing my knife up at the same time into the area underneath its chin. I shifted it to the side, letting it fall at an angle and holding on tightly to my knife so that the corpse simply slipped off of the blade. I might have smiled had the circumstances been different, but they weren't, so I didn't, my expression remaining in its hardened state as I turned a glare onto the other walkers.

A few short moments later, I was putting my knife through the last walker's skull. I let gravity do the work of pulling it off my knife, and all I had to do was push the body back and keep a good grip on my weapon, yanking it back in one fast motion. I had quickly found that since I wasn't exactly the strongest, that was the easiest way of freeing my blade without incident.

Somewhere not far behind me, I heard something of a sickening crunch that sounded like kindle snapping, except a lot louder and a lot more grotesque. I turned just in time to see the stranger who had saved my life executing the only remaining walker of that fucking _pack_ that had been after first me, then him. And that's what it was. An execution. He had broken the walker's leg, a short thing that was probably once a pretty girl considering that it was garbed in a short dress that may have once been white, but was now long since yellowed and filthy with bloody stains. It was down on one knee, reaching out for him as it gurgled kind of pitifully, the surprisingly white bone(guess I thought that would somehow be stained too) of its leg poking out of its decaying flesh where it was snapped in two only adding to that image of weakness.

But that look on his face. Ending the "life" of the undead was always something that I had seen as a necessity, and on top of that I saw it as merciful. Neither of those reasons was why he was killing that walker. His eyes were boiling with rage, pits so dark brown that it almost looked like his pupils were blown. He hated that walker. He hated it intensely, with an anger that I'd seen somewhere else before, but I couldn't quite place it. And I was enthralled. Fascinated, disturbed, and feeling some weird hybrid emotion I'm not sure I have ever felt before, all at the same time. In each of his hands was a hatchet, and he crossed his arms in front of the walker's face before bringing both of the blades forward, moving in opposite directions of each other. Sprays of the signature black looking blood of the undead spattered the grass on both sides of the female walker, and its head was simultaneously severed from its place on her neck and into two different chunks. The corpse fell over onto its side with a thud.

I have to admit, he did well to hide the anger. He moved with cold indifference, but that fury in his eyes told me the real story. It didn't really disappear, but it did appear to go dormant after the last walker was dispatched. He sheathed his hatchets in brown leather sheathes that were hanging off his back, the straps both across his chest diagonally with one on top of the other.

By now I realized I was staring, but I didn't stop. I was still too... curious... about this other survivor. He had saved my life after all. I was getting my first good look at him, since before I had been too pumped up with adrenaline to worry about anything other than survival. Now my heartbeat had returned to its normal pace, and I could afford the distraction of another person.

I think he was probably within a few years of me in age. He was a good bit taller, and he had the muscular body of a man more than the scrawny frame of a teenager which was what I was currently stuck with, but he didn't look too old. Maybe eighteen, or something? The skin that I could see of his was lightly tanned(which wasn't much, he was wearing a thin looking olive green coat over his shirt so pretty much just his face, neck and hands were exposed), but that was probably normal unlike my forever pale complexion and his facial features seemed Caucasian. Walker blood was spattered at an angle across the lower half of his face right over his mouth and down his neck. Not only was it there, but it was soaking into his clothes in several places. It was probably in his hair too, but I couldn't tell since it was almost the same shade of color as his eyes, only darker since it was actually black. It wasn't as long as mine, not even going all the way down his neck, but his bangs would be hanging into his eyes if he didn't have them brushed to the side and it seemed thicker than mine was.

If he had cut his hair recently enough for it not to be all that long, did that mean that he had a camp? I remember people back at the prison who had come from the outside, and they usually had long unruly hair, only to tidy up when they arrived at our home. And more importantly, if he had a camp did I even want to go with? It turns out that I didn't have to really worry about those kinds of things. Because apparently even if he did have a place to call home, I wasn't invited.

I thought maybe he would have said something, _anything_. I thought he would have at least bothered to look at me, but he didn't even do that. No, he simply turned, without so much as even glancing in my direction, and started to walk away. I was unable to conceal my surprise, my mouth opening and closing as I struggled to find my words, just staring after the other teenager as he walked away from me. _Should I even call out?_

 _Of course you should! He saved your life, so he can't be all that bad. Maybe there are others, maybe now you won't have to be alone,_ a part of me desperately thought. I was naturally wary to take the risk, but then the thought of being alone really started to sink in again and threw any qualms I had about taking this chance out the window. I would still be cautious, but I had to try to at least talk to him and thank him, or else I knew I would regret it later. _I at least owe the guy a thank you,_ I grudgingly admitted to myself, hating the fact that I needed help from a _stranger_ in the first place.

"H-hey, wait up!" I hated how weak and unsure my voice sounded as I was calling out to him, and how not knowing exactly what I was going to say caused me to fumble around and stutter with my words. I started to jog to catch up with him, keeping my knife in my hand at the ready just in case I had to use it. I didn't see any firearms on him, but he had a backpack on that could easily contain a gun. I wish either one of mine had some ammo.

He either didn't hear me, or I was getting ignored, because the other boy just continued to walk, not even slowing down at the sound of my voice. "I said wait!" I tried again, a bit louder this time in naïve hope that maybe it was just the fact that he didn't hear me the first time. _Okay, he would have to be fucking deaf not to have heard me that time,_ I thought in annoyance.

"Fuck, stop goddammit!" I yelled, my voice cracking due to my irritation, which only served to further piss me off. Despite how I was feeling, I still slowed down as I caught up to him, making sure to stay a few good feet back. I still had no clue what this guy would do, and anyone who could hack and slash their way through a pack of walkers wasn't someone I wanted to try and start a fight with.

"You can't just walk away! You saved _my life!_ " I attempted to reason, trying not to show my desperation. No response.

"Where are you even going?!" Surprisingly enough, this was what got a reaction out of him. He stopped abruptly, and I followed suit, almost falling over as my feet ceased their movement but the rest of me tried to keep going. I watched him suspiciously, my knife raised into a combat position. He still hadn't turned around to face me. He never did either, the single word his deep voice produced in response to my question spoken to the empty space in front of him.

"Away."


	2. Together

**(Zeke's POV)**

"What the hell does that even mean?" he asked incredulously. I guess he wasn't satisfied with my answer. I didn't particularly care. So I resumed walking. "Oh, come on! You owe me some kind of explanation! You saved my life. I don't even know your name. People don't just do that anymore, save strangers for absolutely no reason."

For some reason, that really irked me. So I stopped again, but this time I didn't keep facing forward. I turned to the side, fixing an icy glare onto him. "You're right. _I_ saved _your_ life. I don't owe you _shit_ ," I deadpanned. I'll admit, it was kind of impressive, the way he was holding his ground. I was bigger than him. He had a gun, but I remember hearing several shots and judging by the way he was holding his knife in his hand and leaving his gun in its holster, I'd say that it was out of bullets. If it came down to close combat, I would kill him without a second thought. I didn't doubt that I would win. Yet he didn't even flinch, scowling right back at me.

During our staring session(or rather our glaring session, I suppose), I was able to get a better look at him than I had before. He was younger than my seventeen years by at least one, if I had to guess, possibly two. He was several inches shorter and had a skinny frame, his complexion a bit on the paler side. A smudge of blood, rotter blood judging from the darker color, stained his left cheek, just underneath his eye. He had fairly long hair for a guy, and it went just about all the way down his neck. It was a few shades lighter than my own raven-colored head of hair. It was also covered up by a brown sheriff's hat that had golden dangles coming off of it, the brim of the hat shadowing his face slightly. Though not to the point where I couldn't see his eyes as he held his fierce scowl. They were an intense, electrifying blue. No, not just electrifying. _Captivating,_ my mind provided unhelpfully, despite the grudging admittance to myself that it was true. This realization only made me want to somehow glare with even more hostility.

A few good moments passed by, and he still hadn't responded with anything other than a glare so intense, I was surprised I didn't burst into flames. Well we weren't exactly parting on amicable terms, but I could live with that. Thinking that I was finally going to be allowed some peace, I turned and started to walk away again. I didn't make much noise when I walked, so when I heard echoes of my own footsteps, I knew he was following me. I stopped again, now turning around all the way. "Stop following me."

"Tell me why you helped me," he replied stubbornly. This kid was just asking for trouble. _Hasn't he ever heard the expression, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"?_ I thought in annoyance. I contemplated my response, but then I just realized that the best one was nothing. The determination on the other's face showed me nothing I could say would make him stop asking, so I wasn't even going to waste my breath.

 _Just ignore him, he'll get tired of this,_ I told myself, huffing in frustration as I began walking again without another word. The sound of footsteps followed me. I veered off the road, going up the driveway of one of the houses. It was the one that I had already started to scavenge for anything useful, but had halted the search when I heard shots. The whole reason I had been there in the first place was to search the neighborhood for supplies. All the gunfire made that a bit more challenging, but if anymore rotters had heard the shots I would either take care of them, or leave. At this point I was more worried about my unwanted companion, because I didn't need some inexperienced brat slowing me down and attracting more of the undead than he already had. _He had better not- Oh, that's it,_ I thought as I heard more footfalls trailing me right up the driveway, grinding my teeth together in anger and irritation at this persistence of his.

At the porch steps I turned, my brow furrowing in a vehement glare. "I am not going to ask you again," I warned with a dangerously cold voice. I was close to losing my temper. He stopped a few feet in front of me, but he still didn't seem phased. He wasn't glaring like I was, his expression just stubborn. He was ready though, and I could tell his muscles were tensed in preparation for combat just like mine were. Watching him, I realized how pointless it was. I sighed, finally relenting. This was too trivial of a reason to fight over. I didn't want him around, but I had saved him. I might as well just give him what he wanted.

He seemed to be able to detect this change in me, eyes narrowing suspiciously as if I was about to confess to some crime. "Well?"

"I don't know why. I was just... here. I found this neighborhood while scavenging. I was searching for supplies, and when I heard the shots I came to investigate. You were getting attacked by all of those rotters, and I thought maybe I could save you. I guess I was right," I finally elaborated, or at least tried to. I didn't really know the reason myself to be honest. It was a stupid thing to do, I knew that. Even before I did it, I knew. But watching him on top of that station wagon... something just told me to try. When you've been alone as long as I have, you don't really have a lot to lose by following stupid impulses.

"But why? There were a lot of..." he appeared to think about something for a moment before continuing, " _rotters_ surrounding me. It was a risky thing to do, especially when you're doing it for someone you don't even know," he said, and even though his voice sounded truly curious and his words made it seem like he just wanted to know my motives, I felt like he was picking apart my random act of kindness, and I began to get defensive.

"I'll keep that in mind for next time. Leave innocent boy to die, got it," I retorted sarcastically, giving him a thumbs up as I spoke. That really ticked him off.

"I'm _not_ innocent, and I am definitely _not_ a kid. So don't go calling me boy," he responded, his face twisting up into an angry glare. I could have made a remark, but I kept it to myself, not wanting to prolong this anymore than it had to be.

"Whatever. Look, I already told you. I don't know why I helped. It just seemed like..." I began, trailing off as I chose not to say my next words. They sounded stupid and naive. I was about to tell him to forget it and leave me alone when he spoke again, surprising me.

"The right thing to do," he finished my sentence, with the exact words I had been withholding in my head. He nodded in agreement as he said the words, his gaze flickering upwards to meet mine. I looked away as soon as this happened, thrown off by the fact that he had been able to read me so well.

"You got what you wanted, okay? I saved your life, and I even threw in an explanation. Now can you just be grateful like a normal human being would be and leave me alone?" I asked, my tone annoyed.

"I don't even know your name," he stated, probably in a prompt for me to introduce myself. That wasn't going to happen.

"No, you don't."

"My name's Carl," he tried, undeterred by my obvious rejection. "Carl Grimes."

"I don't care."

"I-"

"Leave."

"But we-"

"Now."

"I can-"

" _Go!_ Get out of here! I don't want your company, or whatever else it is you're trying to provide. Go back to wherever the hell you came from. Maybe then you'll actually live to fight another day," I practically snarled, stepping forward into Carl's space and pointing off into the distance for emphasis.

"Can you just hear me out?!" he asked, the expression on his face a cross between a frustrated and a pleading one.

"No," was the simple, cold answer he received. I turned away again, walking for the house. Only a few seconds passed until he spoke again.

"Please. I'm alone." His tone was soft, the words sounding like they were dragged out of his throat, and it probably hurt his pride to say them.

I sighed underneath my breath, hesitantly looking back at Carl again. His gaze however was focused on the ground. I heard him sigh, his shoulders slumping in what looked like defeat. He sheathed the knife that had been in his hand throughout our entire conversation. Then he turned and began to slowly shuffle off. This was it. This was what I had wanted. Now all I had to do was let him walk away, and I could get back to my scavenging. _Alone..._

"Zeke," I said flatly, my own name almost feeling foreign on my tongue. That's how long it had been since I had been in a position where I needed to introduce myself. _What the hell are you doing?_ the rational part of my mind wondered. I couldn't even answer. I had no idea why after finally shaking Carl off of my tail, I decided to engage with him again.

Even with my second thoughts, it was too late now. Carl stopped and turned around, his facial expression perplexed. "What?" he asked, dazed and no doubt caught off guard by the fact that I was speaking to him again.

"My name," I answered impatiently. "It's Zeke."

"Oh!" Carl exclaimed in realization. His gaze locked onto mine, but the emotion in his cerulean eyes was unreadable. "I thought-" he began, abruptly stopping. His eyebrows furrowed into a bewildered expression, and I was pretty sure that he was choosing his next words carefully.

I spoke first, bluntly saying, "I'm listening."

The younger teenager shook his head briefly and his puzzled face reverted to a relatively neutral one. "More walkers could have heard those shots," he stated. I mentally noted that "walkers" must be the word he used for the undead. I'd never heard that one before, but I couldn't really say I was surprised considering all of the different terms that I'd heard them called by. "And you aren't the only one who came here to look for supplies. I was thinking that we could stick together for the rest of the day, probably search all these houses. Ya know, uh, just in case we run into any trouble. It'll be easier to handle if we are together," he said a bit awkwardly, purposefully glancing away from me.

Now I definitely didn't need the help. I'd been alone... Well shit, it must have been months now. I couldn't even say how many. But I was beginning to think that Carl might, or at least he thought that he did. Considering what had just almost happened to him, maybe that was the correct conclusion. I got the sense that he wasn't used to being alone, which he apparently was now.

So I thought about it, thoroughly considering the pros and cons. My natural inclination was to deny him, as I had originally been doing. _I really don't need him tagging along and getting me killed._

Then again, I was pretty well stocked on supplies. I could spare some of whatever we were able to scavenge from this neighborhood and still be relatively well off. _Besides, you're talking to him right now for a reason. You could have let him walk away, but you didn't._

After I had been silently standing there thinking for a minute or so, I finally answered with, "Fine. Just don't get in my way." My tone was anything but friendly, yet I still swore that I saw a ghost of a smile twitch at the corner of Carl's lips. I didn't acknowledge it, and I also didn't reciprocate if it truly had been there.

"I could say the same to you," Carl replied boldly, as if I hadn't just saved his life. I fixed him with another brief glare, but I gave no verbal response to this effrontery. Instead I just turned away and headed into the house, not even making an attempt to hold the door open for the boy behind me. I could practically feel the scowl burning into the back of my head when I heard Carl enter not even a moment after I had; specifically what I had heard was the thump of Carl's hand against the door as he stopped it from slamming in his face. I didn't look back at him though, simply heading inside and straight towards a closet that was right across from the entrance.

Hidden behind some coats belonging to the house's previous owners was my backpack, still exactly where I had stashed it when I decided to rush outside to Carl's aid. It was a large light gray hiking backpack. A pain in the ass to haul around? Sure, but it also held enough supplies to sustain me for days, possibly even a week if I really had to stretch it out. I put it on, adjusting the bulky object until it slipped into its usual spot on my back. I had long ago grown accustomed to the weight, and this was easier since it wasn't even full yet. I was hoping that by the end of my scavenging that would change. "I already cleared this house of rotters. I was in the process of searching it for supplies when I heard you outside," I informed him offhandedly as I already began my hunt for anything that I could use.

The other male made some noise, which I was assuming was one of understanding regarding my comment. Or maybe it was an actual reply. Honestly, the majority of my attention was focused elsewhere. Currently I was unwrapping a peppermint that I had found in the drawer of one of the end tables in the living room and popping it into my mouth. It was a bit stale, but it still tasted appealing enough for me. I shoved a handful of the candy into my pack for later before moving on to another, hopefully more fruitful, room of the house.

Unfortunately this one wasn't looking very promising either. It was the kitchen, but it would appear that someone had already ransacked it. Other than a fridge full of perishables that had _definitely_ perished(I was a bit afraid that a living organism was in there feeding off of the mold, and I swear I saw a plastic container filled with long spoiled leftovers move.) and an array of utensils scattered across the hardwood floor, there wasn't much of anything. I was picking through a cupboard whose door had been smashed in and left hanging off one hinge when I felt his presence again.

"You're alone too, aren't you?" Carl suddenly asked from behind me. It never occurred to me that he might have thought at one point that I was not alone. I threw a glance over my shoulder before fully turning around. He stood in the place where the kitchen connected to the last room. His shoulder was pressed to the wall as he leaned against it, arms crossed across his stomach. Those blue orbs of his watched me, scrutinizing me. It was unsettling, and my stomach was momentarily doing all kinds of weird flips and somersaults inside of my body for some reason.

"Did you think that I wasn't?" I inquired, countering his question with one of my own.

He glared something fierce at that. "That's not an answer," he said, his frustration apparent. After a moment of silence between us, he spoke again. "Your hair looks like it was cut not that long ago. Usually the only people who clean up like that are the ones who have a camp. You said that you were scavenging, and I thought maybe you were on a supply run," he explained.

It was hard not to scoff at that. A haircut hardly meant a camp. But I guess I could admire how hopeful Carl was being. That and his observation skills. _Maybe it's the sheriff's hat,_ I thought in amusement. "I'm on a constant supply run. Only my supplies never go to some camp," I replied, my tone sounding more critical than I meant it to. "I'm curious... What made you realize I was alone?"

"Your sterling personality," Carl said, his voice full of dry sarcasm. If we were friends, then maybe that comment would have been a bit amusing, but we weren't. We were simply strangers. He didn't laugh, didn't even smile. Neither did I.

I simply narrowed my eyes at him. Before my face twisted up into a full on glare, I decided to walk away, brushing past Carl to search the rest of the house.

* * *

"The neighborhood is officially searched," I stated, inspecting a dented empty can that, according to the label, used to contain peaches. I dropped the useless article, watching as it hit the floor of the bathroom I was standing in with a mildly satisfying _ping!_ It landed less than a foot away from a dead rotter's split open skull. Handiwork of me and one of my faithful hatchets. The vertical gash that ran from one of its temples to the top of its head was leaking blood, and I was standing in the dark crimson pool. I reached back into one of the rear pockets of my jeans and produced a light blue rag, stained with dried blood. I used it to wipe off the hatchet in my other hand, the one that had ended the miserable life of the creature beneath me. I had them since almost the beginning, my identical weapons that is. They were solid black, even the blades. At the end of each of their handles, there was a grip, also black. So basically, they were very generic looking. Nevertheless, I would probably be dead if I hadn't found them. Right now they were the only weapons I had, besides the switchblade that I kept clipped on the back of my belt. I hadn't possessed any guns in a while. Just as I was sheathing my hatchet and putting away the bloody rag, I heard Carl's footsteps from the hallway, and I turned to face the open door.

"Yeah, I agree. Wasn't shit in this house either," he called, still not in my view yet, although his voice did sound closer with each word. He appeared in the bathroom doorway a moment later. He gripped both sides of the door frame with each respective hand, using his arms to support his weight as he leaned forward slightly. "It's already dark outside. We should go back to one of the houses where we didn't have to put any of these assholes," at this he tipped his head downwards to motion to the corpse behind me, "out of their misery and hunker down for the night," he suggested.

Truthfully it hadn't been that bad of a day. Carl and I had worked our way throughout the entire neighborhood(which to be fair wasn't really that big) more quickly than I probably could have done it on my own and with minimal obstacles. I forgot what it was like to have somebody watch my back, and despite not quite trusting him yet, I had to admit that it was kind of relieving. There weren't a whole lot of supplies, but as it was, neither of us really had been hurting for supplies in the first place. So for now, we were fine. Plus Carl found an actual knapsack to use instead of that weird bag he had been toting around earlier, so that was good for him. There hadn't been much conversation, and mostly we just talked business, such as coordinating our efforts as we cleared a house. That was fine by me.

I nodded in acceptance of Carl's plan, and he stepped off to the side to let me through when I made for the door. It was peaceful outside. We stepped out of the house into the twilight, and there was nothing. No more rotters had come around yet, and so our trip back to one of our previously cleared houses was an easy one. The place we chose was fairly intact. The door hadn't been smashed in, so thankfully I was able to lock it behind us. A short entry hallway opened up into the living room. I made a beeline for the couch, stripping myself of my hiking backpack and dropping it onto the piece of furniture. Carl was right behind me, and I heard a light thud as he dropped his pack to the floor, then a relieved sigh as he situated himself in a comfortable looking armchair across from the couch. "I'm gonna do a quick sweep of the house," I said, already starting to walk off.

I could feel Carl giving me a look as he quickly said, "Wait, what? We were just here."

Though I didn't stop walking. From another room I called, "The only reason I've survived this long is because I'm careful." A second later, as I was moving to leave the room, Carl stepped out in front of me. He gave me a hard look. Not quite a glare, but there was definitely a fire burning inside those blue hues of his. Like he thought I was somehow challenging him. I, on the other hand, probably just looked confused. Then I realized. Carl must have taken my words the wrong way, as if I was saying he wasn't careful. Which, that could be the case to be fair. He did almost get eaten earlier today. I opened my mouth to say something, but I wasn't really sure what that something would be. I wasn't going to apologize, especially considering I did nothing wrong.

Turns out, I didn't need to say anything. After a few moments of silence, he spoke. "I'll take the upstairs," he briskly said, turning and walking away.

My mouth opened again, possibly to protest, but then it snapped shut again. I guess there was no harm in Carl making himself useful. My eyes followed him as he traversed the staircase, and then he was gone. It didn't take me long to finish checking the rest of the ground floor. There was nothing, thankfully. I made sure that all the windows were locked, and that the only other point of entry from this floor, that being the front door, was secured. Just because I was paranoid, I moved an end table from the living room over to rest against the front door. Then I found an empty vase, and balanced it on the very edge of the table. That way if anyone or anything tried to get in, I would be ready for it.

"What are you doing?" Carl asked, just as I was stepping away from the table.

I turned towards him, stepping to the side and motioning to what I had done. "This? Call it an early detection system. That way there won't be any surprises," I explained.

"Smart," he remarked thoughtfully, nodding slightly as he looked at the vase and the table.

"Run into any trouble upstairs?" I asked as we moved back to the living room, me sitting down on the couch while he took a seat in his previous spot in the armchair.

"Nah, it was clear. I didn't think there would be anything anyways," he said, grabbing his bag and dragging it over to rest against his legs. He opened it up, starting to dig around for something. He was probably looking for food. Which reminded me(and my stomach) that I was pretty hungry too. I hadn't had much of anything today.

Reaching over and standing my pack up next to me on the couch, I pulled out a can of S'Getti Rings. "Never hurts to check," I replied while I reached back to where my knife was clipped on my belt. The handle was a light, dull green color. A flick of the switch on the side and the blade popped out with a quiet click. I stabbed it down through the lid of the can, using it to pry the metal disc off before licking the side of the lid that was covered in sauce and then flinging it away somewhere behind the couch. I wiped my switchblade off on my pants before folding it up and clipping it back on my belt. Then my hand dove into my backpack and went fishing until it found a spoon. I didn't hesitate starting my meal, now realizing how ravenous I was. I shoveled a few spoonfuls into my mouth within the space of a second, probably looking like some sort of savage. It was sometime during all of this that I felt Carl watching me again.

I heard him chewing something too, and when I finally did look up he had a half eaten graham cracker in his hand, the box wedged between his legs. He was watching me, his gaze unfaltering. Even now, when my dark eyes met his vibrant ones, he didn't look away. Not saying anything, I simply broke eye contact and continued to eat. "How long have you been out here?" Carl finally asked, which I'm guessing he had been thinking of asking since he started staring at me.

I didn't look up again, my reply gruff and a bit dismissive. "Since pretty much the beginning," I answered right after swallowing some more pasta.

"This whole time? You haven't had a camp at all? Not even once?" he asked in disbelief.

At this I did look up again, meeting his eyes with my own stone cold ones. I just looked at him for a few moments, silent. "There were a couple places where I held up for a little while. No extended amounts of time or anything. But there were a few weeks where I was in a place... It didn't last. So yeah, I did have a camp. Once. A long time ago," I said, honestly a bit surprised at myself for divulging the information. I guess there was no reason to hide it, other than not wanting to talk about it to some stranger.

Carl looked away this time, taking another large bite of his graham cracker as he registered what I told him. Since apparently he had a streak of curiosity, I guessed he was preparing his next question. I didn't much like people prying, but it had been a long time since I had a genuine conversation before today. Besides, it wasn't like he was asking anything too personal at the moment, so telling him didn't bother me all that much. "When did this thing with the camp happen exactly? The main reason I'm even asking is because your hair... Like I said earlier. You never did tell me when you had time to get a haircut out here," he continued, getting a bit cheeky at the end with his last comment.

I actually smirked, chuckling a bit to myself. "Can't let that go, can ya?" I asked rhetorically. "My hair looks like it was cut not that long ago because it was. I did it, 'bout a week ago," I said truthfully.

"You can cut hair? Were you some kind of barber's apprentice before this all went down?" he asked sarcastically, laughing a bit. And he smiled. It was just for a second, maybe two, but he had a nice smile. It had been a long time since I'd seen anyone crack a smile, and probably even longer since I'd had one myself.

My response didn't come right away as I instead opted to finish my can of food. I looked down into the empty metal cylinder afterwards. I aimlessly tapped my spoon lightly against the inside of the can as I thought of how to answer him. I decided to just tell the truth once again. "My mother taught me. She used to cut it for me. Actually never been to the barber in my life," I said, my voice a bit quieter than before.

"My mom always used to cut mine too. 'Cept she didn't teach me. I wasn't exactly a big fan of haircuts anyways," he replied.

My only reply was a nod, simply because I didn't have anything else to say. It was strange, talking to someone else like this. I didn't mind. Honestly, I actually kind of enjoyed it after going so long without human contact, but I would never admit that. I also wasn't about to let myself get used to it. _After tonight... It's going back to being just me. It has to,_ I internally promised.

I was snapped out of my reverie when I heard Carl moving. He got up out of the armchair, and I looked at him questioningly. "Where are you going?"

The other male had started to walk away, but he slowed down to a stop at my words, glancing over his shoulder. "I just said..." he trailed off. "You didn't hear me did you? Yeah, you looked kind of zoned out. I'll be back in a second," he said, still not answering my question. I watched him walk towards the bathroom, holding something in his hand that I hadn't really gotten a good look at. Shrugging it off, I set my empty can on the table in front of me. I stashed my spoon back in my backpack and then moved it to the floor.

About a minute later Carl returned from the bathroom, his face looking a bit cleaner. Actually a lot cleaner, considering the blood had been wiped off of it. Now I saw what was in his hands, a water bottle in one and a wet cloth in the other. He set the water bottle down by his backpack, walking over to me and offering me the cloth. "Here. You're almost as bloody as the dead," he said, though his tone wasn't insulting.

A bit hesitant, I still took the cloth from Carl's hand after a moment. "Thanks," I murmured. I rubbed my free hand over my face to try and feel how bad it was, and I realized that Carl was probably right. It felt like there was dried blood all over my face, and even down my neck. Using the cloth to wipe away at it, I felt a bit relieved as dried flakes of it peeled away from my skin. I hadn't realized how bad it was to be honest. I was used to blood, as disgusting as that may be. After I had finished wiping my face, I wasn't quite sure what to do with the cloth. Should I give it back to Carl? I doubted he would want some soiled thing. He had moved back over by his chair, still standing up with his backpack where he had been sitting before. I think he was putting the water bottle away. "I'm assuming you don't want this back," I offered, holding up the cloth to indicate that was what I was talking about.

Carl turned to me, opening his mouth to say something. Then it slowly closed again, and he leaned forward slightly, his eyes narrowing as he looked at some part of my face intently. After a few seconds, I started to get weirded out. "Um, Carl-" I began, but the boy cut me off.

"You missed a spot," he informed, pointing at some part of my face. Of course he was a few feet away so I had no idea where this alleged "spot" was.

"You're gonna have to specify," I said, trying to sound patient but most likely failing.

"Right there, on your neck."

I wiped my neck again with the cloth, trying to be thorough. If Carl's facial expression was any indicator, I'd obviously failed. He made a disapproving face and shook his head. "No, you still didn't get it," he insisted. He walked over in front of me, holding his hand out, palm facing upwards.

Looking at him with distrust, I said, "I think I can get it," declining his offer. I wasn't too gung-ho about letting people into my personal space, so instead of giving him the cloth I just wiped at my face and neck once again.

In response Carl sat down on the coffee table in front of me, and now he was in my personal space. "Just give this to me," he said with annoyance, taking the cloth from my hand before I really had a chance to object. I sighed in resolution, resting my hands on my knees and craning my head backwards slightly so that Carl could get at this spot that was bothering him so. I watched him carefully. He had a concentrated expression on his face, and he took off his sheriff's hat, laying it on the table he was sitting on. He leaned forward, his face not even a foot away from mine. It was the first time I had seen him without the hat on. The chocolate-colored bangs fell into his eyes slightly, but they would probably cover up his blue orbs all together if he didn't have them swept to the side. I caught myself looking at his lips, and suddenly I became aware of how attractive he was. Before I hadn't exactly been paying attention to that sort of thing. I knew that I wasn't straight for a long time now, so these feelings didn't bother me. Well, not in that sense, but I definitely didn't need to be distracted or to have my judgment clouded by an attractive face.

Carl set in with the cloth, beginning to rub away at a spot right underneath the left side of my jawline. I could tell he hadn't really got it yet, but I still couldn't help instinctively moving back at the touch. He gave me a look, and then made a second attempt. I tried to stay still, I really did, but once again I jerked away slightly. Carl stopped, now just looking at me with an indecipherable emotion. "How long have you been alone?" he asked suddenly.

Remaining silent, I simply looked back at him without expression. I had been alone a long time. It's not that I really cared about telling him that, but I wasn't really the open book type. I had enough of his digging. I was about to tell him off, when he said something else.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

For some reason, I got the sense that he wasn't just talking about right now, being in front of me with the cloth. I still didn't speak, staring. "Question time is over. Go upstairs and get some sleep in one of the bedrooms," I finally said dismissively, standing up and walking around the couch so that I was behind it, mostly to put some distance between Carl and I. "I'll be camped out on the couch so that I hear if anything tries to get in."

Carl gave me a scowl, dropping the cloth and kicking it backwards underneath the table as he stood up. "Don't tell me what to do. Wouldn't it be safer if we stuck together? I know you're not exactly joining my fan club anytime soon, but it would make more sense for both of us to sleep down here," he argued, his voice starting to become hostile. He snatched his hat up off of the table and put it back on, continuing to glare at me.

I glared right back at him. "We. Are. Not. Together," I stated with a tone of finality.

The expression that Carl gave me in response to that made me about 90 percent sure that he was killing me with his mind. After I was sure he had mentally burned my body, he scoffed and shook his head. "Whatever," he breathed, turning and walking away. He roughly grabbed his bag on the way to the stairs, and on his way up I heard him mutter, "Asshole," underneath his breath.

Giving no reaction, I watched him disappear to the second floor of the house. I heard a door dramatically slam, and at that I rolled my eyes. Now that I was alone, I could finally have some peace and quiet. I slowly took off both of my hatchets, carefully laying them on the coffee table, both still in their sheathes. Then I removed my light coat, laying it across the arm of the couch, and leaving me in a plain black tank top. I sat on the piece of furniture, melting into it and exhaling a sigh. So tomorrow, I had to ditch Carl. That was going to be a fun conversation. I began to think of possible scenarios, even a couple where I let Carl stay with me. But none of those ones panned out. I had to be alone. _Is that really what you want?_ my mind supplied.

I didn't want to think about this anymore. I didn't want to think about anything anymore really. So I closed my eyes, deciding that I should try to get some sleep. Though it didn't matter whether they were open or closed really. My mind was still racing.

I had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

* * *

 **Ahhh! I am so happy with the success of the first chapter. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed, favorited, and even those of you who just read. This is the part where I reply to the nice reviews I got :D.**

 **thewalkerinme:** **I love you 3. Haha, you can thank yourself because I probably wouldn't have uploaded if not for you.**

 **The Sorrowful Deity:** **Thank you!**

 **Ms. Jackson53:** **Well, here's the next chapter. Thanks!**

 **Also, I'm thinking about getting on a schedule where I upload once a week. But you know, don't hold me to that. As Rick once said, "Shit happens."**


	3. Night Terrors

**(Carl's POV)**

That guy was an asshole.

Zeke being the guy of course.

I mean seriously, what was his problem anyways? Was I really that bad to be around? I couldn't understand why he had to act like that. Like I had the plague or something. He even sent me up here, into a metaphorical quarantine. Well, not quite. I really came up here of my own accord, because Zeke was being insufferable. I resented the idea of him making me do _anything._ I didn't care if he was older, or bigger, or whatever. He still was _not_ the boss of me.

Huffing in anger, I dropped my backpack to the floor unceremoniously. Wanting to scream out my frustration for the world to hear, I practically ripped off the blue plaid flannel I had been wearing, violently shedding the dirty, blood covered garment and dropping it to the carpeted floor. I also took off my sheriff's hat, setting it on the nightstand next to the bed. Last I removed my gun belt, where I also had my knife sheathed, hanging it on the corner of the nightstand. Then I turned around and flopped onto the bed, back first. I readjusted myself so that my head was resting comfortably against the pillows. It was a fairly large bed, being king-sized. I was oriented a little more to the side of the bed on my right, so that I could get up quickly if need be. I hadn't really been thinking about it when I came up here, but I must have chosen the master bedroom as my sleeping place for the night.

It was pretty dark, so I couldn't see all that much of my surroundings, but I remember it looking fairly nice and clean(for it being the apocalypse and all) when Zeke and I checked the house earlier. It was intact at least. There was a dresser in the corner near the door, and a few paintings on the walls whose detail I could not see due to the low light level at the moment. There was a window to my left side, the curtains hanging open. Most of this I was recounting from memory, but I used the silhouettes that I saw of certain objects to confirm what I believed the room looked like.

After I was bored with looking around the room, I laid there, glaring up at the ceiling and trying to sleep. It felt impossible. I couldn't stop thinking, couldn't stop worrying, about my current predicament. Zeke saved my life. I felt like I owed him, and I hated that. But at the same time I wanted his companionship; I needed it really. No matter how much of a dick he could be. I just didn't want to be alone.

Today hadn't went that badly(well, minus the entire almost getting eaten alive thing), not after I finally convinced Zeke to let me accompany him. Sure, there hadn't been a whole lot of conversation, but at least we hadn't been fighting. Earlier I had accepted that Zeke and I weren't going to be exchanging matching friendship bracelets anytime soon, but I had thought that maybe we would at least be capable of being decent to each other. Obviously I was wrong. I thought of the way he shunned my attempt just to help him clean up, and then basically told me to get lost.

He must really dislike me.

Did I really want to stick together with someone who could barely even tolerate my presence? I wondered if I even had the option. I might be with Zeke right now, but in his own words, we weren't together. He made that painfully clear. He was probably planning on leaving me. Maybe even tonight, after I had gone to sleep. It wasn't hard for me to imagine him sneaking out on me like that, without even the decency to say goodbye before departing. The thought may seem harsh, but it wasn't an idea born out of spite(well, mostly). It was just the impression Zeke had given me of himself.

I didn't trust him.

He clearly reciprocated this distrust, at least if the way he was acting around me was any indication. There lay the main problem. _Maybe if you two stay together that will change,_ some distant part of my brain tried to convince me. I doubted the credibility of that prediction.

But I was afraid. Deep down in the pits of my mind, tucked away where I would never have to acknowledge it, was fear. I would never admit it, but I was afraid to be alone. If Zeke left me now, I might not see another person for weeks, months, possibly even years. Well at least not a friendly person. Okay, scratch that. Friendly was definitely the wrong adjective. Zeke wasn't Sammy Sunshine positive, but he hadn't tried to kill me. Quite the opposite I suppose.

In short, I was... How did that saying used to go? Something about a hard place, and maybe a rock. I couldn't really remember.

Frustrated with everything, I turned over onto my side to try and get some rest. After a few minutes of laying there, I realized that I felt a bit too vulnerable to sleep. The feeling of exposure was uncomfortable, and I didn't mean the kind of exposure one felt from not getting under the covers of the bed like I currently wasn't. This was the first time that I had slept without someone near me who I trusted. I may not have always been the safest even when I was with my group, but I still felt like it when I had them watching over me during the night. I exhaled a long breath as I resignedly rolled onto my back again, staring at the ceiling blankly.

After a few minutes of laying there, unsure what it was exactly that I needed, an idea popped into my head. With some moving around I was able to reach the nightstand where I had hung my weapons. I groped around until my hand wrapped around the hilt of my knife, and I carefully unsheathed it. I left the sheathe itself, along with the belt, hanging where it was. Then I moved back to lay on my side, slipping the knife underneath the pillow that my head rested on. I kept my hand wrapped around it.

I don't know if it was the knife under my pillow, or just the fact that I had been laying there in the silent darkness for at least a good hour now, but finally I slipped into sleep. It wasn't a peaceful one.

* * *

 _Movement. Something rustled behind me on the couch._

 _I was sitting on the floor, curled into a ball against the piece of furniture with my knees hugged to my chest. I had fallen asleep like that, my father unconscious on the sofa. Only now he wasn't._

 _My head snapped up at the sound of him shifting. I quickly scrambled away, just in case he wasn't himself anymore. I grabbed his revolver, aiming it up at him halfheartedly. The gun was shaking like crazy, because my hands were. I took a deep breath, but I still couldn't steady them._

 _I had been here once before._

 _I was sitting some good number of feet in front of him, my legs splayed out in front of me. I couldn't see my dad yet, not fully. He was still shrouded in shadow, but I heard him make some grunting noises as he stumbled off the couch. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be. He wasn't dead. He_ wasn't.

 _He didn't stand up. He crawled towards me, his breathing heavy and ragged. More like a wheeze. Not dead. Not dead._

 _Finally he was reaching out of the darkness towards me. I hadn't even realized I was crying and whimpering, his revolver practically slipping out of my lax grip._

" _No, no, no! Dad..." I trailed off, begging him to not be what I already knew he was._

 _Dead._

 _Before I even saw his face, with the vacant, discolored eyes, I knew. Before he even started crawling forward, growling and groaning for my flesh, I knew. Before he latched onto my leg with that stunningly strong perseverance of the undead, I knew. I knew he was dead._

 _After all, I had been here once before._

"No _!" I shrieked, wrenching my leg away from his grasp and scooting backwards frantically. He steadily crawled after me. I aimed the Colt Python at his head, the hammer cocking back with a click. "Stop! Just stop! Don't make me do this again!" I cried, more warm tears running down my face._

 _He didn't stop. In fact, his only response was a snarl. I couldn't do this. "I can't do this," I repeated, telling him out loud this time. "I can't, not again." With that said, I flicked the hammer back into its resting position._

 _My dad- no. No. This wasn't my dad. It was just some undead thing that looked like him. My dad was dead. The monster's pace seemed to pick up, almost as in response to my words. I dropped the gun, turning and crawling away on all fours, before stumbling to my feet. I almost fell over again, but I managed to recover and began to dash away. Monster or not, I couldn't shoot it. Not again._

 _I didn't know where I was going to run. Hopefully there was a flashing exit sign somewhere, a door leading out of this nightmare. It didn't take me long to find something, but it was most certainly not an avenue of escape._

 _Another walker. Its back was turned, but a faint feeling of recognition came over me. Long, brunette hair hung down its shoulders. It was clearly a female. It was-_

 _Mom._

 _Her walker turned around, snarling at me and barely waiting a second before it lunged. I sprung back, but when I turned a different way I just saw another familiar face._

 _Shane. He looked exactly like I remembered him that night at Hershel's farm. It may be sad to think about, but the most clear memory I had of that man was the night he died. More specifically, the memory was of his reanimated state, after he had already died. The walker was the same, looking exactly like it had before I shot it in the head._

 _With the three walkers closing in on me, I was driven upstairs. I had no other place to run._

 _But the more I tried to get away, the more familiar faces I kept seeing. Familiar,_ dead _faces. Dale. Hershel. Patrick. Even that boy from Woodbury who I shot during the first attack on the prison, which felt like centuries ago. Every door that I opened in the upstairs of this hellish parody of the suburb house Dad and I had actually stayed in brought a new walker to join the gathering mass of undead chasing me._

 _This was it. The last door in the upstairs of the house. If I opened this one and a new walker popped out, it would all be over. They would tear me to pieces, but it didn't matter. I had to open it because they would rip me apart anyways if I didn't even try. So I threw the door open, and to my luck I had apparently located the only empty room in the upstairs of the house. I slammed it shut behind me, locking the walkers out. Locking all of the people out who I had failed. All of the people I had_ killed.

 _I had killed them, one way or another. Dad, Mom, Shane, Dale, Hershel, Patrick, and obviously that boy from Woodbury. I should have done more, for all of them. They were dead because of_ me.

 _I pushed myself against the door hard. They banged against it, but once I was confident it wouldn't give I allowed myself to step away from it cautiously, turning around so that I could watch and make sure they wouldn't break through. It shook, and I could hear their growls and vicious snarls. I was pretty sure I was alright for now though. Looking away from it, I sighed in defeat. That was when I saw it. This wasn't just any regular bedroom of the house._

 _It was the nursery._

 _It was so pristine. Untouched. Standing in here almost made me forget that the world had ended. There were clean looking toys set up on shelves attached to the walls. A wardrobe that was hanging open, full of immaculate baby clothes stood in one corner of the room. There was a closet full of baby supplies too, diapers and formula, everything that would be needed to take care of an infant. The room's paint job even looked_ fresh. _It was pink, with an assortment of adorable animals painted to look like they were running laps around the room in the middle of each wall. There was a crib too, right across from the door against the wall._

 _As I looked around I realized that the door had stopped moving, and that I couldn't hear growls anymore. I felt at peace, which was a stark contrast to the fear and distress I had felt moments before._

 _The crib wasn't empty._

 _Originally, I had just glanced over it, assuming that there wasn't a baby inside. When I actually looked at it in my process of surveying the room, I finally noticed the infant. I slowly approached the crib in disbelief, setting my hands on the railing and looking in. The baby was on its front, most of its body covered by a blanket. It looked like Judith._

 _Actually, it looked exactly like my baby sister._

 _It was. The only reason I didn't know right away was because I couldn't believe it. I felt my eyes water with more tears that threatened to overflow, and I had to remind myself that this wasn't real. I carefully reached down into the crib, like she would disappear any minute now. Maybe she would. I gently picked her up, turning her over so that I could see her face._

 _I wished I hadn't._

 _She opened her eyes and hissed at me. She was one of them. One of the walkers. Despite my brotherly instincts, I dropped her back into the crib. "No!" I yelled. I started weeping once again, backing away from her. I could still hear her quiet snarls, could still see her tiny hands reaching for me. Any semblance of serenity was gone._

 _Just then I heard them again. The snarls of all of the other undead who I once knew right outside the door, the noise starting up suddenly enough to make me jump. Their hands thundered against the door, thumping on the wood with twice as much ferocity as before. I glanced over my shoulder, unsure whether to back away from the door or away from my undead infant sister. She growled something particularly vicious, drawing my attention back to her, only to see that she had moved now so that her arms were actually sticking out of the side of the crib from in between the bars. Her forehead was pressed against them, and she continued to hiss horribly, staring at me with a disturbing hunger in eyes that were supposed to be filled with nothing but innocence._

 _I heard a splintering noise from behind me, then another, and another, all in rapid succession. By the time I had spun around the door was already breaking apart, and the undead began pouring into the nursery._

 _They were on me before I could even really react. I don't know if they had just actually moved that fast or if my terror had petrified me, but it really ceased to matter at this point. "No, get away!" I cried fearfully, trying in futility to push the first walker away from me, which just happened to be what was once my father. It had a hold on me, and the others were grabbing at me now as well. I stumbled backwards and fell, and it followed. It became dead weight that shoved me to the floor even faster._

"Carl!"

 _My hands pressed against the hungry corpse's chest. That familiar face I had known for all of my life opened its mouth, snarling before its teeth snapped together in the air above me. Then its mouth reopened, and its weight was pressing down on me. "N-no!" The gaping maw got closer. The other walkers were surrounding me now too._

"Carl, wake up!"

" _Get off!" I demanded, trying to push harder, trying to shift the obstacle off of me. The teeth only got closer. Soon they would sink into my neck, or maybe my shoulder. I felt more hands on me as the other walkers knelt down now, grabbing at my legs. Finally I couldn't hold my dad's walker back anymore, and it overpowered me. That mouth bore down on me, and so did the others. I couldn't even form any palpable words._

 _I just screamed._

"CARL!"

* * *

The first thing I felt when I came to were hands on me, and I was terrified. Terrified that the dream had somehow carried over into reality, even though that was a ridiculous thought. Though before my brain had the sense to sort this out, I felt something else. My hand, wrapped around the hilt of a knife. So naturally, I gave something of a war cry and attempted to roll over and cut the life out of whatever it was that dared touch me.

My attempt failed, and the perpetrator caught my knife wielding arm mid swing, holding it hostage with one hand. I wriggled around for a minute, struggling until I heard, "It's me, calm down!" from a familiar voice. I settled enough to see that it was indeed Zeke. It must be later now, because I could actually see my surroundings, courtesy of the moonlight filtering in through the bedroom's window.

Suddenly, I became very aware of the tears streaked down my face, and I hoped that the light level was still low enough where Zeke couldn't see them. I shot him a quick glare and roughly yanked my arm out of his grasp. "What are you even doing up here?" I muttered the question as I sat up. I avoided his gaze, reaching over to the nightstand and sheathing my knife. Then I moved across the bed to swing my legs over and sit on the edge on the other side. I had been laying closer to the side that Zeke was standing by now, but that would mean I would have to face him. I didn't want to do that right now. I quickly rubbed the back of one of my hands over my eyes and face to wipe away the evidence that I had been crying, even though there was a chance he had already seen it.

"What are _you_ doing up here?" Zeke countered from behind me, his voice critical.

Throwing another scowl at him over my shoulder(my face was pretty much in a perpetual glare at this point), I asked, "What are you talking about?" with the annoyance blatant in my tone.

"You make it a habit to scream bloody murder every time you're sleeping?" he asked sarcastically, causing my face to drop. I looked away from the other male and down to my feet.

Deciding that my new shoes were the most interesting thing in the world, I stared at them intently. I had picked them up from a nearby house in the neighborhood where Dad and I had been after I lost one of my old shoes to a walker. "Was having a nightmare..." I muttered softly, my voice trailing off. I hadn't realized that I hadn't just been screaming in my own head during the nightmare itself.

"I think the really bad ones are called night _terrors,_ " Zeke replied, although his voice wasn't so harsh anymore. I didn't hear his footsteps, so when he sat down next to me(with at least a good foot of space between us of course) on the bed I jumped slightly, glancing over at him for a second before looking away again.

I didn't say anything to his words. I wasn't really sure what _to_ say. I felt embarrassed. Thankfully it wasn't day time right now, because the tips of my ears were probably pretty red, along with my face. It only got worse the more I thought about it. Zeke had not only seen me almost die today, now he had to see me screaming and crying in the throes of a nightmare? Like(and it hurt my pride to admit this)- like some _kid._ I fiercely chastised myself for the weakness, gritting my teeth together and focusing a sour expression on the floor. "Have you ever had one that bad before tonight?" the older male asked.

Still I didn't speak. In the hours that I had known Zeke for, usually these kinds of situations were the other way around. I spoke, and he didn't. The role reversal would be kind of funny if I wasn't so utterly traumatized from my dream. Now for some reason he was actually making an effort to talk to me. It was probably out of pity.

Obviously I had nightmares before. I grew up in an apocalypse where the dead rose up to eat the flesh of those who were still living; it was sort of something that couldn't be avoided. I hadn't however had a nightmare(a night _terror_ apparently) this impacting before tonight. Never had I woke up screaming like that. In the prison it would've just been embarrassing, but before that, on the road like this? It would have been, and still was, dangerous. Of course it's not like I could really control it.

Albeit this was the first time I had slept since my dad died. It was only last night after all. Hell I didn't need to have a nightmare to be terrorized by the fresh, painful memory. I saw it every time I closed my eyes. The way his blood and brains were sprayed on the floor, the couch, the wall... It wasn't the kind of thing that could be easily forgotten. I felt tears welling up in my eyes just thinking about all of this again. I had to push it down, just had to keep pushing it down. My hands set themselves above my knees and curled into fists, gripping some of the denim of my jeans in a last ditch effort to hold myself together.

I could feel Zeke's eyes on me, watching me. Releasing my fistfuls of fabric, I stood up off of the bed suddenly and walked over to the window. I placed both of my hands on the sill for support and leaned against it, staring outside onto the moonlit landscape. There wasn't much out there right now. On the bright side, I couldn't see any walkers that had been drawn by my screaming, so we might have gotten lucky there. "You don't have to act like you care," I finally said, my tone devoid of emotion as I continued to stare out the window blankly.

"I'm not acting like anything. Just asking a question. We live in a world where a nightmare like that can actually be dangerous. We'll be lucky if those screams didn't draw rotters for miles. Not to mention whatever or whoever else might be around. If this is a regular thing for you it could literally get you killed," Zeke said, his voice hardening once again.

I did a half turn so that I could look him in the eyes. I didn't glare at him. Instead I just gave him a vacant, unyielding stare. He was half-scowling at me, his dark gaze burning into mine. His eyes weren't angry like when I saw them earlier today with the walkers. More so just determined, with a sort of cold look about them. There were a lot of things about Zeke that were cold like that, now that I was thinking about it. In fact, I don't think I had caught a hint of warmth off of the other male since I had met him. I guess I wasn't really being fair thinking that, considering I wasn't exactly the friendliest either, but it was different with Zeke.

He was worse than me.

"This was the first one that has been this bad. If it makes you feel any better I haven't spotted any walkers out there yet. Sorry to inconvenience you," I said with dry, bitter sarcasm in the pseudo apology. I turned back to the window.

I heard the bed shift as Zeke stood up behind me. "I'm-" he began what I thought for a second might be an apology, but then I abruptly dismissed that thought as an outlandish one. He stopped himself anyways, sighing and probably rethinking whatever it was that he had been about to say. "I didn't mean it that way," he finally murmured. He said it quietly, but he sounded shockingly sincere and a bit remorseful. I thought it was most likely the closest thing I would get to an apology.

He surprised me further when he continued. "Do you... um, wanna talk about it? Your nightmare." he offered, sounding extremely uncomfortable. I felt a twinge of something roll through my body at those words. It wasn't quite happiness, but it was definitely something better than the emotions that had been plaguing me. I guess it just felt good that he had been willing to ask, despite him not wanting to.

I turned towards him, sort of sitting against the windowsill, although the ledge wasn't large enough to fully support me so my feet were still on the floor. My hands gripped the sill on each side of me, and I looked at Zeke with amusement dancing in my eyes. "No, that's alright," I said with a small laugh at his expense, pardoning him from having to talk to me about the nightmare. I wasn't sure _I_ would even want to talk about it. His voice rang of awkwardness and discomfort when he asked about it though, and that wasn't something I was used to hearing from him, causing the slight improvement in my mood. "Thank you though," I added, faintly smiling at the other male. "I suppose I owe you a lot of thanks today?" I asked rhetorically.

"No, you don't have to thank me for anything," Zeke quickly murmured, one of his hands coming up to scratch the back of his neck.

I looked hard at Zeke for a minute, trying to figure him out. As if I could actually do that. He was a complete and total mystery to me. Then he looked back at me, as before his gaze had been focused elsewhere. It still amazed me just how dark his eyes were. I had to really look to see that they were brown, because at a first glance, the pupil and the iris appeared to be fused together in a solid black color. I kept eye contact with him as I said, "I do."

Our gazes remained locked together for a few more moments, and I began to feel butterflies in my stomach for some reason. Zeke didn't respond to my last words, finally breaking our eye contact as he turned for the door. "Well, if you're okay up here, I'm gonna go back downstairs," he said, already starting to walk away.

I just now noticed that Zeke had taken off his coat and was in a dark tank top, and he wasn't wearing his hatchets on him either. "Hey, you didn't bring your hatchets up here. I thought you heard me yelling?" I blurted out thoughtfully.

At first I thought he was just going to rudely keep walking in a mimic of his earlier actions, but he veered away from the door at the last instant, moving to the dresser and grabbing something. Then I saw the object, illuminated by the moonlight after he had spun around and taken a couple of steps back in my direction. It was one of his hatchets. Though my eyes began to wander from the blade as it wasn't the only thing whose features were being highlighted by the lunar rays.

"I did. I just didn't take the time to put them on. I heard you and was wor- I mean. I thought you were being attacked. So I just grabbed this one and ran up here," Zeke explained, but to be completely honest I wasn't all that focused on that. I barely even noticed his slip up. I mean I was focused on _him,_ but that was kind of the problem. See, because I hadn't noticed how toned Zeke was until just this moment, and now I couldn't _stop_ noticing it, or rather stop almost staring at his muscles. I think it was because before he had been covered up by that coat of his. Now light from the window shined on his bare skin, exposing his broad shoulders and the muscled arms that hung down from them.

Finally I realized what I was doing. I started to get embarrassed, feeling my face heat up. I looked down at the floor, scratching at a stain on the leg of my jeans. Thankfully, it didn't appear that Zeke had noticed my staring, but I still felt like crawling under a rock and hiding. Why was I even staring in the first place? Feeling confused and frustrated with myself, I felt Zeke's eyes on me. He was probably waiting for some sort of response to what he had said. "O-oh. Yeah. Um, thanks," I muttered lamely. I didn't look up.

I heard footsteps again as Zeke walked away, causing me to glance upwards. Something inside of me remained unsatisfied, like a feeling that I had to do something. It manifested itself when I suddenly spoke again, startling even myself a bit. "Zeke?" I said, my tone taking on a questioning quality. He stopped in the doorway, his signal to continue despite that he didn't turn around or say anything. "I mean it," I continued after a moment, without any explanation to what I was talking about yet.

Zeke turned to me, what I would imagine being a curious expression on his face, but I couldn't see it very well since he was now out of the reach of the moon beams filtering in through the bedroom window. Of course, I could be completely wrong about whatever face he was making. I didn't know him that well after all. Regardless, it was clear that I had his attention now. "Thank you. Not just for this... For everything," I said simply, yet that simplicity didn't make my words any less sincere.

Now I wasn't someone who liked thanking people. It was quite the opposite actually. I hated it. Thanking a person meant admitting that I needed their help in the first place, which was just stupid. I didn't need anyone's help.

Well, usually I didn't.

I suppose I couldn't maintain that claim very well in light of recent events. Which I guess that's why this was different. It just felt right. Zeke had proved to be a real ass sometimes(most of the time), but the truth was I was beginning to think he was a good guy, deep down.

He nodded, and I swore I saw his lips curl into a small smile for only a second. It was probably just a trick of the shadows. As I said, I couldn't see his face that well from this distance, and I hadn't ever seen him smile yet. "Goodnight, Carl," he murmured in response. It might have just been me, but I also swore that his voice sounded more pleasant than usual. I think that was the nearest thing to warmth in his tone that I had heard from him yet. It wasn't icy cold at least, so that was an improvement. He backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

I couldn't help but smile at the door where he had left.

Turning around and climbing back onto the bed, I collapsed into the middle of it with my face buried into the pillows. I actually kicked off my shoes this time, opting to get a bit more comfortable.

Then I slept. There were no more nightmares, or dreams of any sort for that matter. Only peaceful, serene, sleep.

* * *

 **(Zeke's POV)**

My heart finally stopped racing.

I was downstairs once again, a healthy floor of space between Carl and I.

I set my hatchet on the coffee table in front of the couch, where I had been sleeping prior to Carl's screaming. Slumping back down on my temporary bed, I laid on my back and stared up at the ceiling.

Something was wrong with me. I should have just woken Carl up, scolded him for making so much noise, and then came back down here. That would have been the most logical thing.

Though for some reason, I hadn't been acting very logical ever since I saw Carl on the roof of that station wagon. Rushing head first into a bloodthirsty pack of rotters wasn't _logical._ Allowing Carl to come with me wasn't _logical._ Talking to him after his nightmare and trying to provide some sort of comfort wasn't _logical._

All of that was something different. Something _human._ It was probably the most human I had been in a while.

And I hated it.

There wasn't room for being human anymore. Being human was just another way to word being _weak._ Being human got people killed, I had seen it firsthand. Besides I didn't have anything left to be human for anyways, nor did I want anything of the sort.

Hence the reason Carl was bad for me. It was better to be cold, to be _logical._ Something about him kept breaking that logic that had been keeping me alive.

Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe the only thing keeping me so _logical_ for so long was the fact that I had been alone. Maybe anyone who had came along would've brought out this humanity, this _weakness_ in me. Either way, I had made up my mind. Carl was the problem, so I needed to get rid of him. I had already decided this earlier, but now I was even more sure of myself.

I placed my hand against my chest just to make sure that my heart wasn't still trying to burst right out of my body. The racing had started when he screamed. That was only because I had been sound asleep of course, only to wake up to _that._ It lessened but didn't come to a complete stop when I found him safe in his bed, simply having a nightmare. Then it was pounding away again as he tried to stab me after I woke him up. We talked after that, and I felt my heartbeat begin to return to normal. Until I told him he didn't have to thank me. He looked into my eyes. He said, _"I do."_

And my heart was racing again.

I didn't know why, but it didn't matter anyways. I just needed to get some more sleep. So I focused on staring at the plain white ceiling above me, trying to wipe my mind as blank as what I was looking at was.

* * *

I must have managed to doze off for at least an hour or two because the next thing I knew there were noises. They were coming from the door, from outside. At first I thought that I was imagining them, after all if anything was trying to get in the vase I set up earlier should have fallen and broke, but I quickly realized that they were real. I jolted into a state of complete awareness, all of my previous tiredness forgotten. Carefully and silently standing up off the couch, I grabbed the hatchet that I had left out on the coffee table and crept to the entryway. I didn't go into it, instead pressed against the living room wall and peering around the corner at the door.

It wasn't rotters. Rotters slammed against a door or scratched at it. They tore it down, or at least they gave it their best shot. The only thing moving was the doorknob. It was turning, no, not even turning. Jiggling. Someone was trying to pick the lock. I looked around, trying to find a window that would let me see the front door. I needed to know what I was dealing with.

One of the windows in the living room proved perfect for what I needed. It gave me a clear view of the front porch. What I saw was a shadowy figure knelt down by the front door. The moon was still lighting up the outside but not nearly enough to the point where I could see what this intruder looked like. I couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman. I did see something strapped to the figure's back, most likely some sort of weapon. It was long and thin, but beyond that there were no visible defining characteristics. I could be looking at anything from an ax handle to a metal pole.

I would see whatever it was soon.

There was only one intruder, so I wasn't about to back down. I silently stalked to the entryway. The vase I had set up wobbled precariously as the invader must have pushed against the door or something. I quickly nudged the vase so that it moved back onto the table fully. Then I picked up the end table itself and moved it back to the living room as silently as I could. At this point the early detection system would only get me killed. I needed to surprise the person outside, not have a glass vase smash right in front of them.

Just as I was setting the table back in place, I heard a click emanate from the door. The intruder had gotten the lock. I quickly snatched my other hatchet out of its sheathe and pressed myself against the wall again, waiting around the corner to attack whoever came through the door.

I heard the quiet creak as the door opened. Then the footsteps, almost inaudible.

 _Closer._

 _Closer._

 _Closer._

… _Dead._

When I knew the intruder was close I leaped around the corner, swinging my right hatchet down in an arc. The figure was fast, moving just in time to avoid having their skull caved in. I followed up faster, my left hatchet slashing at the intruder's stomach. They jumped back, but not in time to completely dodge the blow. I didn't eviscerate my opponent like I had aimed to, but I felt my hatchet catch some flesh.

I heard a short cry of pain, and it fueled me. I swung with the right again, but seconds before it connected I heard a noise that sounded like metal sliding against metal. The intruder had unsheathed their weapon. Instead of slicing through flesh and bone, I felt my hatchet stop mid swing as it collided with the long thin blade of a sword.

Before I could even think about attacking with my left hatchet, I felt the right one violently ripped out of my grip and flung backwards into the living room somewhere. It turns out my enemy's sword had hooked under the blade of my hatchet, hitting the metal part of the handle right underneath it and disarming me. I stumbled backwards at the force of the strike.

I barely regained my bearings fast enough to parry the next attack, bringing up my remaining hatchet just in time to avoid being cut in two. Again I stumbled a few steps backward, now driven into the living room, but the intruder also recoiled at the force of our weapons' collision. I thought I recovered faster, lunging at the figure with my hatchet raised.

Only I was wrong.

The intruder spun around once before bringing up their leg and delivering a powerful kick to my chest right before I could land a blow with my hatchet. I was sent flying backwards, the force of the hit so powerful that I crashed into the coffee table and it broke.

Still slightly dazed, I started to try and get up only to be kicked in the face. I saw darkness for a second, but I still felt my a boot pin my left wrist to the floor before I could even attempt a swing with my hatchet. I glanced over at it once my vision cleared and tried to fight against it, but the leg holding my limb to the floor was solid. I felt a sharp edge pressed against my neck, and when I looked up I was staring into the intruder's cold, determined eyes. They were the eyes of a killer, someone who had done this many times before. This person would kill me without a second thought if I tried anything, and I knew it.

It was a woman. Her dark hair hung down into my face since she had bent the knee of the leg that wasn't holding me down so that she was half knelt down. That was probably so she could press her sword's blade against my jugular, ready to slice my throat open as easily as opening a can of tuna.

No, that wasn't a good example. It would be even _easier_ than that.

I think it was a katana. I wasn't exactly a sword aficionado, so I didn't know, and it's also hard to get a good look at something when it's poised in such a way where if it even twitches your throat gets sliced open. So, a katana was just my best guess.

"I'm going to give you one chance. Where is the boy?" her voice held just as much determination as her eyes did. She was on a mission. What kind of mission I wasn't sure.

 _The boy? Is she talking about Carl?_ I thought, my continuing to stare up at her blankly. Despite my racing thoughts, I didn't let my facial expression change. I wasn't about to give away anything.

Pressure was applied to my Adam's apple. I gritted my teeth, expecting to be killed any second now. "I know he's here. I've been tracking him. Heard a scream earlier. Was that him? Did you hurt him? Did you _kill_ him?" she continued, her voice getting more intense.

I had no idea what to tell her. Her last questions sounded almost worried. Maybe she knew Carl. Or maybe she didn't. I couldn't be sure. If I confirmed that I knew him, I would be giving him away. So it's not like I could just ask her why she was looking for him. She could be hunting him down to kill him.

 _Who cares? If you don't spill she's going to kill_ you, _smart guy,_ the logical part of my brain said. Which might be true. It also might be true that she would just kill me _anyways,_ regardless if I told her or not.

 _If you tell her your chances are a hell of a lot better._

There's no way that Carl didn't hear the crash of the coffee table breaking. Maybe he would come help me.

 _You gonna rely on the help of a guy who you had to save from being eaten just hours ago? Hell, that kid's probably slipping out the window now. Or maybe he will come down here and get you_ both _killed,_ my logic continued.

I knew that I had to give an answer now. I had probably just seconds before she decided to kill me.

"I don't know who you think is here, but it's just me. That scream you heard earlier was me. I had a nightmare," I lied without batting an eye. It was at this point where I decided I was going to die. This woman would slice me open whether I told her the truth or not, so it was pointless to get Carl killed too. I wasn't going to tell her that he was here.

Her dark eyes narrowed at me. It was hard to see, but I didn't need to see it. I could _feel_ her gaze cutting into me much like her katana would most likely be doing in a minute or so now. "I don't believe you. You have five seconds to tell me the truth."

Here it was now. The end.

"Five." My heartbeat picked up its pace. I tried not to swallow due to the precarious position of the blade against my Adam's apple.

"There's nothing else to tell you. I swear!" I exclaimed in a pleading tone, but at the same time my right hand slowly shifted towards one of the wooden legs of the coffee table. If I was going to die I was sure as hell going to go out swinging. I kept eye contact with the woman above me to make sure she wasn't watching my hand.

"Four," she continued, not fazed by my words in the slightest. Her mind was made up.

"I don't know what boy you're even talking about! What do I have to do to prove it to you?" My hand crept along the floor. _Almost got it. Come on..._

"Three."

"Please, you don't have to do this!" I begged, although I wasn't really begging. It was still part of the act.

"Two."

Her count never made it past two. It stopped abruptly when the hammer of a gun was cocked back with an audible _click!_

"Get the hell away from him." It was Carl, his voice a combination of calm and extremely threatening.

At this the woman looked up and away from me, over to the sound of his voice. I did too. He was standing at the foot of the staircase, aiming his revolver at her. The revolver that I believe was empty, but thankfully she didn't know that. Carl also seemed to have a great poker face. That was until she spoke.

"Carl?" she said, more like a question than a statement, her voice full of disbelief and another emotion that I couldn't quite identify.

Carl's poker face was gone, and he looked shocked. His revolver lowered, and when he spoke his tone sounded the same as hers had.

"Michonne?"

* * *

 **Early upload, because why not? Oh, that and because you are all awesome people and left a bunch of reviews.**

 **The Sorrowful Deity : ****Well, since you love it, I'll take that as a compliment! I played the very beginning of that game and thought it was pretty cool, but I haven't gotten a chance to play anymore yet. I'm curious, how does it give you that vibe?**

 **WitchingHour:** **Haha... yeah... about that... xD. He'll be nice eventually, I promise! I mean, he was kind of nice-ish in this chapter?**

 **thewalkerinme:** **I willlll.**

 **Ms. Jackson53:** **Thank you! Yeah, their relationship has kind of a rocky start. They aren't even really friends at first, but that will all change in time.**

 **Guest:** **Yay! Yeah, she is the best. And thanks! I'm glad that you like him. Hehe... surprise. This isn't that chapter xD. That's next chapter, I promise.**

 **KatLives:** **Thank you so much! I'm excited to reveal his past honestly.**


	4. The Way It Has to Be

**(Carl's POV)**

Dad's revolver dropped out of my hand and hit the carpeted floor with a dull thud.

My body was moving before I even thought about it, without permission from my mind. Michonne was moving too. She sheathed her katana, running for me the same way I ran towards her.

We collided in an embrace, my arms tightly wrapping around her middle while hers enveloped my shoulders with the same intensity. I buried my face in her shoulder, tears of joy welling in my eyes. I heard her stifle a sob.

Soon we were both laughing.

They weren't the kind of laughs you make because something is funny. They were the kind of laughs that you just can't help but letting out, the kind of laughs that come along with overpowering happiness and relief.

I couldn't believe that she was alive, that she was _here_. I was afraid to even let go of her for fear that I would wake up and that the reunion would all be another cruel dream, only different from the one I had experienced earlier.

Her body was warm against mine as we clung to each other, but I started to notice a more intense warmth radiating from her against my stomach. I pulled away slightly, her hands on my shoulders now. She opened her mouth like she was going to speak, but I cut her off first when I noticed something.

"Jesus, Michonne, you're bleeding!" I exclaimed in worry, my gaze shifting from the horizontal crimson line that was now staining my shirt to a rip in the brown leather vest she always wore, clearly the origin of the bleeding even though I couldn't really see the wound itself.

A brief glance downwards is the only attention she paid her injury, practically shrugging it off. "It's just a scratch. Your friend there has a funny way of saying hello," she replied offhandedly, the words holding no real anger to them, motioning to the side with a tilt of her head.

I looked over, forgetting that Zeke was still there momentarily. He was perched on the arm of the couch, watching us. I caught his gaze with my own and glared at the thought of him hurting Michonne, ignoring the fact that he was probably just trying to protect both of us. He scowled back, throwing his hands up in a frustrated way. "He's not my friend," I stated, looking away after that. "That's Zeke. He-" _saved my life._ But I didn't want to say that. "-... Doesn't matter."

" _You_ broke in," Zeke interjected, standing up off the couch and pointing an accusing finger at Michonne. He looked pretty pissed.

Michonne simply ignored him, her focus solely on me. She smiled, and I could see that I wasn't the only one whose eyes were close to spilling tears. "I'm so glad that you're okay," she said, and I could hear the emotion in her voice, almost overwhelming her. She pulled me back into her, and we hugged again.

"I can't believe that you're here," I murmured half into her shoulder, my face turned slightly to the side now so it wasn't completely muffled by her body. I'm not sure why, but my eyes searched for Zeke for a moment, since he wasn't on the couch anymore. I caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he disappeared past Michonne, into the entryway I think.

 _Is he leaving?!_ I thought in alarm and disbelief, but then I noticed his backpack still sitting near the couch.

Suddenly Michonne split our hug apart, holding me at arm's length once again. Now she was looking at me again, but this time it was much more serious. Her dark eyes bored into mine, and I wondered what she was going to say next. "Carl." Even her voice was deadly serious, and I started to worry. That was until... "I followed two sets of tracks from the prison. _Two._ I-" Her gaze dropped for a moment and she sounded like she was choking on her words. She swallowed, and then her eyes were on me again. "I found the grave."

I felt like somebody put my stomach in the spin cycle of a washing machine. I didn't want to think about this. I _hated_ thinking about this. I couldn't imagine what talking about it was going to be like, but I wouldn't have to imagine in a second or two.

"Is he really-" she began, but something stopped her from finishing the question.

 _Don't say it._

 _Don't say it._

 _Don't._

 _Say._

 _It._

Until Michonne squeezed my shoulders to snap me out of it, I wasn't aware that it was _me_ that stopped her from finishing what she was about to ask. I was shaking my head vehemently. Because _no,_ she didn't need to finish that question. Maybe if I just didn't acknowledge it, it wouldn't be true. Maybe if I just kept denying it, Dad would walk through that door, completely fine, completely _alive._

My head stopped shaking, and I looked up to meet Michonne's gaze. Both of our eyes were tearing up now, and they weren't the happy tears that they were before.

I nodded, answering the question that she never finished.

Before I had even finished the head motion my eyes overflowed. I hated it, how weak and child-like I must have looked, but I couldn't stop it. At first they were just silent tears, but after Michonne pulled me in for another hug, I broke apart completely. We both did. I was glad that Zeke went outside.

Clinging to each other like our lives depended on it, we dropped to our knees on the floor. I was wailing now, my face buried into Michonne's shoulder, and I no longer cared how weak I was being. Michonne was crying just as hard, and I could hear the uncontrollable sobs, feel each one as the force of it wracked her body.

I didn't share any blood with Michonne, but in that moment, together, we were both mourning a family member.

* * *

We talked for a while after that. About Dad. How it happened. How much we missed him. But not just the bad things. We talked about some good memories too. Like the run to King County, where I used to live with Mom and Dad forever ago, before the world ended. That was the day I met that somewhat crazy guy Morgan and Michonne found that rainbow cat figure she had back at the prison. Back then she was just a stranger. I supposed it was also the day she became more than that.

" _Everything okay with her?" Dad asked at the end of the run as we were packing up to go back to the prison._

" _I think she might be one of us," I answered._

" _What?" he asked incredulously, grinning._

 _Giving a slight smile, I responded with, "Everything went okay."_

Michonne also explained how she had found me. Apparently Daryl had taught her a thing or two about tracking. She had followed Dad and I's tracks and then found the house. The grave... Then she followed me.

Now she was asking about something else. Or rather _someone_ else. "That kid, _Zeke._ What's the story there?" she asked, her voice full of curiosity. We were sat at the kitchen table. Michonne had a hand towel pressed to her abdomen where Zeke had "scratched" her. I glared at the area before my scowl flitted up to her face. Having a feeling that he had gotten her better than she was letting on, I still let her get off with just the angry look instead of scolding her like I wanted to. It didn't appear to be too severe.

I wasn't sure how to answer that question. Or rather, I didn't want to. It wasn't a long, complicated thing to explain, but that didn't make me want to say it any more. "After Dad... I wandered. I just kept walking, and eventually I found this neighborhood. I was gonna scavenge for supplies, but there were walkers. I fired my gun. I had to. More of them came. Like, like a pack or something. You probably saw all of the bodies outside," I began.

"Wait, wait, wait. You're saying that all of those walkers came after you? How-" she interrupted, but I cut her off.

"If you give me a second I'll get to that part," I replied cheekily, smirking at her. She made a face at me, now patiently waiting.

My expression reverted back to a serious one. "I thought I was gonna die," I said, and I wasn't looking at Michonne anymore, instead staring straight ahead as I recounted. "I got on top of the car," I made a vague hand motion that was supposed to indicate to the station wagon outside, "and they swarmed it."

I had brought both my knife and my dad's revolver down when I heard Zeke and Michonne fighting, but I hadn't brought the holster or the sheathe so now they were both set out on the table in front of me. "I lost my knife in a walker's brain," I continued, picking up my knife and aimlessly scratching at the edge of the kitchen table as I spoke. "Was near empty on ammo. I was surrounded with no way out."

"Then he just _appeared._ Like some stupid scene out of a movie. He just came out of nowhere. Started killing them. He saved my life," I finally said. I hadn't wanted to. Admitting it to myself and Zeke was one thing, but I hadn't really wanted Michonne to know. It wasn't exactly one of my shining moments and talking about it made me feel like an idiot.

Realizing that I had stopped talking, I risked a glance at Michonne(she was watching me impassively), and I cleared my throat to continue. "After that we just stuck together," I concluded, leaving out the fact that Zeke hadn't wanted me with him and probably still didn't.

I looked at Michonne, waiting for some reaction or response to all of that. She blinked a few times. "Well, I guess I'll have to cut the kid some slack for tearing my favorite vest then," she said, a small smile blooming on her face.

"Michonne... That's your _only_ vest," I replied with amusement, smiling back at her, to which she responded with a chuckle.

"I think there are still a few hours until the sun comes up. We should all probably try to get some rest before we figure out our next move tomorrow," she suggested. "First though, I have to treat this," she said as she looked down at her wound and moved the towel a second before replacing it. "I don't have any supplies. Do you have anything? Peroxide, bandages, anything like that?" she asked.

Remembering that I had found some peroxide earlier, I nodded. "I should have a little bit of peroxide with my stuff upstairs. I'm not so sure about bandages though... I'll have to ask Zeke. I think he's outside somewhere. He'd kill me if I went through his bag without asking." With that, I got up, quickly going upstairs and grabbing the small bottle of peroxide. I dropped it off in the kitchen for Michonne before heading for the front door.

"Carl," she called from the kitchen right before I left.

I walked back to her, pressing my hand to the wall where the kitchen connected to the living room and leaning. "What?" I asked curiously.

"Don't forget your weapons," she stated, pointing to the kitchen table where I had left them both.

I hadn't figured that I would need them, assuming that Zeke was right outside. Michonne was right though, and I knew I should take them anyways, just in case. Or my knife at least, which was the only thing I grabbed. "Gun's out of ammo," I informed briefly before I left the room and headed outside onto the front porch.

Zeke wasn't there. I glanced around, not seeing him anywhere. "Zeke," I called quietly, looking around once more. Nothing. I headed around the house to the back. "Zeke!" I called again, a bit louder this time. This time there was something, but it wasn't Zeke.

A walker shambled out of the woods, lured by the sound of my voice. It saw me immediately, shuffling towards me and hissing. _Good thing Michonne reminded me,_ I thought, readying my knife. Only I didn't need it.

Zeke moved like a ghost, and I didn't even see him until after he buried his hatchet in the back of the walker's skull. The corpse fell to its knees for a second, and that was when Zeke violently ripped the blade out of where it was stuck with that disgusting squelching sound that I can unfortunately say I have gotten used to. Then the body hit the ground like a rock.

His hatchets were covered in blood. _He_ was covered in blood, more of it than he was earlier. No, this was fresh. He had little flecks of the dark fluid on his face. The expression he had was almost feral as he watched the corpse fall, and then he seemed to come out of whatever state he was in, looking up to me. "What?" he asked in a mildly annoyed tone as if I had just interrupted something. It was nonchalant though as well, as if he hadn't just burst out of the woods and slayed a walker.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

Zeke seemed to consider the question before evasively responding with, "Out." Then he glared. "That why you come out here? To get eaten by more rotters and ask me stupid questions?" he asked, hostility lacing his tone.

"Oh, screw you! I came to get you because Michonne needs bandages since _you_ tried to kill her," I snapped, wanting to throttle him at this point.

Zeke pulled out that rag he had earlier, putting one hatchet in the crook of his elbow as he cleaned the other off. He wasn't even looking at me anymore. "Hmm. That sounds like not my problem," he replied coldly.

I stared at him in disbelief. I didn't talk until he had finished cleaning off his blades and put them away, finally looking at me. "Are you serious? What _is_ your problem?!" I asked incredulously.

He stared back at me, walking across the grass until he had lessened the distance gap between us. He leaned in, whispering, " _You._ "

Anger boiled up in me so badly that I all but threw the knife in my hand down to the ground for fear I would try to stab Zeke if I held onto it any longer. I shoved him as hard as I could, but he only stumbled back a couple of steps. I think he noticed how pissed off I was and braced for this sort of thing. "Me?! You're the asshole!" I yelled, no longer caring about the noise.

"You aren't exactly pleasant company to keep _either_ ," Zeke retorted, shoving me back. I almost fell, but I managed to catch myself.

Losing my temper completely, I finally just threw a punch at Zeke's face. It didn't land, the other boy catching my fist in his hand. I was about to try again with my other hand, but Zeke anticipated that apparently, grabbing it with his free hand. He forced my arms behind my back, pinning them there.

"Get the _fuck_ off me!" I growled, struggling wildly in his grasp as I tried to break free.

"Calm down!" Zeke grunted, his arms remaining locked together. I, of course, wasn't about to listen to him, so I continued my attempts to wrench myself out of his arms. Admittedly this was pretty pointless since he was stronger than me and I couldn't even use my arms. " _Calm_ _down!_ " he roared, his hold tightening so much that it was painful.

I would never admit it, but I actually felt a small spike of fear at that. Enough so that I actually _did_ calm down. Zeke was looking at me in a way that for a split second I was worried I was going to end up like all of the walkers that I had seen cross his path. Jaw clenched, nostrils flared, and a deadly rage in those dark brown orbs of his. Then, after a moment, he settled.

He didn't let me go, but his arms stopped crushing me enough for me to inhale a breath. When I did, he actually looked like he felt kind of guilty, but the expression quickly passed; I might have even imagined it. I wasn't good at reading Zeke's facial expressions. Or no, maybe I was, but he didn't show me many. Usually it was just the blank one or annoyance.

Right now his face was undecipherable. I had no idea what he was feeling, only it wasn't the blank expression I was looking at. This was a new one that I hadn't seen yet. I stared, trying to see what he was feeling. He stared back.

Since before I had been focused on pounding his face in, I hadn't noticed the close proximity we were in. I definitely did now. He had essentially wrapped his arms around me to pin my own arms to my body. We were pressed against each other, not even a foot of space between our faces. This was the closest I had ever been to him.

His face was attractive in a way that I didn't understand. Was I supposed to feel this way about another guy? Wasn't I supposed to be attracted to girls? Back at the prison, I used to think that Beth was pretty, but it wasn't anything like this.

Looking into his eyes was like staring into tar pits. I realized that it wasn't just because of their naturally dark color and that his pupils were blown.

Walker blood was speckled across his face everywhere like freckles, all over his sun-kissed skin.

There was a scar that I hadn't noticed until now, right at the end of his left eyebrow on his temple. Just a small, white mark.

His bottom lip was freshly split open. Probably from the fight with Michonne. Even without the cut, his lips just looked rough in general. A bit chapped. I was trying not to imagine what they would feel like against my skin.

 _His lips..._ I thought, unable to move my gaze from them now.

I had only ever seen people kiss each other before. My parents. Glenn and Maggie. Never having kissed anyone myself, I imagined it now, leaning forward and kissing Zeke. Or him kissing me.

His breath brushed against my face every time he exhaled. He hadn't exhaled in a few moments though.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't the only one.

It baffled me how I could want to kiss someone who I wanted to punch in the face a few moments ago, but I decided not to think about it. I blamed it on hormones.

The fact that Zeke was a boy did make me feel a bit strange. I mean, I had never been told there was anything _wrong_ with being attracted to another boy, but I had also never seen two males together before.

Not that it mattered anyways. Zeke wouldn't kiss me. I glanced away from him and shook the thoughts away as best as I could before looking back up at him. Then I spoke.

* * *

 **(Zeke's POV)**

"Why do you hate me?" he asked abruptly.

I stared in surprise and disbelief, as that was not what I had been expecting. When I noticed Carl getting ready to speak I expected his words to be, "Let me go," or something to that effect. My mouth opened and closed as I tried to formulate a response to the unexpected question.

What came out was less than eloquent. "Wait, what?" I began lamely, even though I had clearly heard what he said. Carl knew this too, so instead of repeating himself he just waited, his vibrant blue eyes locked onto me.

"Carl..." I began, my voice trailing off. It wasn't crazy for him to think that, which made me feel slightly guilty. Especially for the things I had just said. "I don't hate you."

Carl cocked an eyebrow at me, laughing humorlessly. "Really? You sure have been fooling me," he responded with dry sarcasm.

Now I really felt bad. _Don't. This is stupid, you haven't even known him for one day. He's lucky to be alive. Soon you'll never see him again anyways,_ the logical part of me snapped at my emotions.

"I just can't..." I murmured vaguely, in a way that explained nothing at all. I knew he wouldn't understand it.

 _I can't stay with you and Michonne._

 _I can't be your friend._

 _I can't kiss you right now, even though I really want to in an overwhelmingly stupid way._

"I just can't," I repeated, more seriously and more sure of myself this time. I finally released him from my hold, walking around him and heading for the house.

Carl's gaze bored into my back. I could feel it as I walked away. "You can't what? Zeke! Stop with this cryptic bullshit!" he called, blatantly frustrated.

"There are some bandages in my bag for Michonne," is all I said in response before I went inside.

* * *

When I got inside I found some bandages in my bag and gave them to Michonne. I didn't particularly like sharing supplies, but to be fair I did try to gut her and she didn't kill me. In my defense, it was a pretty big misunderstanding, but that didn't change the facts. Nor did it change the fact that I was a little bit terrified of Michonne and was still half expecting her to slice me and dice me into little Zeke pieces.

Carl was fuming. I even thought he might try to punch me in the face again, but he just ignored me, muttering a goodnight to Michonne and going upstairs.

She didn't ask about it, but she was looking at both of us in a way that made me think that she might have seen our little encounter outside. Carl had been yelling, so she probably heard part of it at least.

Michonne had insisted on being the one to keep watch. I tried to offer, but she wasn't having any of it. I think she didn't trust me. She was probably watching the outside for danger a lot less than she was watching _me._ I didn't blame her. I would have done the same thing.

I laid on the couch, pretending to sleep for a while, when in reality I had been planning. See, I had already made up my mind. With Michonne here, it only made me more sure of my decision. I was going to leave. I was going to leave today, very soon. Now that she was on watch, I wasn't going to be able to slip away cleanly like I hoped, but I also had a hunch that she wouldn't stop me.

Periodically I would open my eyes and look to see if it was getting light yet, and when it wasn't I would close them and continue pretending to sleep on the couch. Michonne didn't really bother me, keeping her distance. She would walk around the house sometimes and look out different windows, and that part was a bit unnerving since she moved like a ninja and the only way for me to know that she was moving at all was when I would open my eyes.

 _Maybe she_ was _a ninja before all of this went down. It would explain the sword,_ I thought, briefly entertaining myself.

Not surprisingly, I was tired. I had wanted to actually sleep, but I didn't want to risk oversleeping. If Carl got up I knew I would never get out of here. Besides, I was used to being tired nowadays. I didn't sleep much anymore.

My eyes opened again, and this time when I looked I saw the pink light of dawn. The sun would be rising soon.

 _Time to go._

Sitting up on the couch, I swung my legs over the side and touched my hiking boots to the floor. I reached over and grabbed my backpack, making sure that I had everything and that it was all zipped up and ready to go. Pulling it up next to me on the couch, I stood up and stretched, my neck giving a satisfying crack when I tilted my head to both sides. I snatched up my coat from where it was laying over the couch and put it on.

My hatchets were stowed away in their sheathes on the floor since I couldn't exactly set them on the coffee table anymore. As I was putting them on, Michonne took notice of me. "What are you doing?" she asked, eyes narrowed and hands on her hips as she watched me suspiciously.

Regarding her with a glance, I picked up my backpack off the couch and slung one of the straps over my shoulder. "You seem smart. I think you can figure it out," I remarked, walking past her for the door.

"Hey, hey, hey, wait up," Michonne insisted as I was at the door, using the hand that wasn't gripping a backpack strap to unlock it. I was about to open it when she grabbed my wrist, pulling it away from the doorknob so hard that I was spun around. She was staring at me incredulously. Glaring at her, I yanked my arm out of her grasp. "You're just gonna leave?" she asked in disbelief.

"Yes," I answered, turning away from her and reaching for the doorknob. Just as I was opening it, I saw a flash of movement, and then the door was slammed shut again. Michonne's hand was pressed against it, and she was standing right next to me, staring at me. I tried to open it again, but she just continued holding it shut.

"Why?" she demanded.

"It doesn't matter," I stated, trying the door again. Still didn't budge.

"Is it because of me? Look, I get that what you did was to protect yourself and Carl. It's-" she began, but I cut her off.

"No. It has nothing to do with you," I interrupted.

She hesitated a few moments, simply staring at me. I hadn't looked over at her yet, but I could feel her eyes on me. "Is it because of Carl?" she asked.

"No," I answered, maybe a bit too fast.

"I saw you two earlier. In the yard. _Together,_ " she admitted, waiting for my reaction.

Finally turning my head in Michonne's direction, I glared. "You don't know what you saw. Now get out of my way," I ordered, trying the door again.

Instead of getting out of my way, she just glared back. It was intimidating, but I wasn't going to back down. I had to leave, and she wasn't stopping me. "Then why don't you enlighten me? Because right now I'm surprised you're leaving. You two seemed awful... _close._ " Michonne almost sounded taunting. Was she trying to make me angry?

 _She's trying to invoke a reaction._

"Yeah, Carl wanted to try a new bonding exercise where he brought his fist so _close_ to me that it connected with my head," I snapped sarcastically. Then after a moment I gave an actual explanation, saying, "What you saw was me restraining his arms so that he stopped trying to clock me in the face."

Michonne looked at me dubiously, her head shaking slightly. "Maybe that's what it started as, but in the end that wasn't all it was, was it?" she asked knowingly, tilting her head to the side with her eyes still locked onto me. Like she could see right through me. I tried not to look surprised at how spot on she was, because whether or not I liked it she was right.

Without warning I yanked the doorknob as hard as I could, shouldering my way past Michonne before she could stop me. "It doesn't matter," I repeated as I stepped out onto the porch.

The door closed behind me, but I knew Michonne hadn't just given up. She was out here, behind me. I didn't even have to look. Either way, it didn't matter. Making my way down the porch steps, I stopped when I heard her words. "Carl told me that you saved his life. That not matter either?" she asked.

Still facing forward, I sighed before giving my response. "I didn't do it for him. I did it for _them,_ " I began, motioning to the street in front of me, littered with corpses. "The dead ones. Because they didn't deserve to get someone else. Because I wanted to kill them. They're abominations, they're-" I stopped myself, realizing I was about to go off on a rant. Shaking my head, I did a half turn to look at Michonne. She was watching me with an unreadable expression on her face. "So no, it doesn't matter," I confirmed.

She chuckled dryly, briefly glancing at the wooden floorboards beneath her before looking back up at me and making eye contact. "That's crap. What doesn't matter is _why_ you did it. Carl doesn't care, he's grateful either way. Even if he hasn't said-" she started, but I interrupted.

"He said it," I blurted out.

"See? Leaving now, it would just be stupid. I don't know if you're trying to run away from feelings that you may have for Carl, or ones that he has for you, or feelings that are mutual between the both of you. But running away isn't the answer. Trust me," Michonne said seriously.

Keeping our gazes locked through all of this, I shook my head. "I don't have feelings for Carl. Yeah, he's cute," I practically winced at my own use of the word "cute", thinking that it wasn't something that should really be said in an apocalypse where flesh-eating corpses roamed the earth, "but that's it," I admitted. "He definitely doesn't have any for me," I said, shouldering my other backpack strap and turning away for a second as I stepped off the last porch step and walked a few feet. Then I looked back at Michonne. She had moved off to the side of the porch steps, her hands gripping the banister as she leaned against it, watching me. I think she had accepted that I was going to leave no matter what she said, thankfully.

"And I'm not running away," I argued.

"Then why are you leaving? Do you even know?" she asked.

Nodding immediately, I answered with, "It's just the way it has to be. Me, out here, with just them." I spread my arms out, indicating to the bodies, and the world around me, and just everything. "It's just the way it has to be," I repeated calmly.

It looked like my words struck something inside of Michonne, her eyes showing that she was far away right now. Her expression contemplative. "It isn't," she almost whispered, but I still heard it.

Another nod from me, and I simply replied with, "It is." I took a few steps back as I said, "That one is a handful," tipping my head to the house as I talked about Carl. "Good luck looking after him. I hope you two make it," I murmured in parting. My hand came up to my head in a sort of informal half-salute half-wave to Michonne, and then I turned and started walking away.

 _Don't look back,_ my logical mind ordered me, but as I continued walking I ended up throwing one last glance over my shoulder anyways.

Michonne was still watching me from her place on the porch. She held up her hand in a goodbye wave, her fingers wiggling weakly. It almost looked like she was giving me a sorrowful smile, but I must have been mistaken at this distance.

Focusing on the road ahead of me, I didn't look back again.

* * *

 **(Carl's POV)**

Waking up, I rolled over in bed to stare at the ceiling.

Fortunately, I hadn't had any nightmares.

Unfortunately, the first thing I thought about was Zeke. It made me not want to go downstairs. I didn't want to see him, and his stupid cryptic excuses, and his stupidly dark eyes, and his stupid face.

Though it was completely bright out now. Michonne must have let me sleep for a while. I couldn't lay around any longer. Whatever it was we were doing today, it wouldn't get done if we lost the light. Not to mention that we probably had to _decide_ what we were even going to do.

So I got up. I put on my shoes, the flannel that I had taken off last night, and then my gun belt. Assuming that I wouldn't need them first thing, I left my hat and my bag where they were. Then I went downstairs.

Traversing the steps as slowly as humanly possible, I almost groaned. The first thing I expected to see was Zeke sitting on the couch cleaning off his hatchets with that rag he kept with him or something to that effect. I put on a scowl, only when I finally got down the stairs there was no one on the couch. His gear wasn't around either. Nothing of his.

An annoying thought tickled the back of my mind, but I pushed it away, ignoring my suspicions. He was probably just "out" again and took his stuff with him this time. I almost rolled my eyes before beginning to search for Michonne.

Finding her surveying the outside landscape from one of the kitchen windows, I greeted her with a, "Hey," as I walked into the room, pushing away my first instinct which(to my annoyance) was to ask where Zeke was. I sat down at the table.

She seemed to startle, which surprised me. Michonne rarely ever startled, and as I considered it, I realized I must have caught her in thought. "Carl," she responded, although it didn't sound like much of a greeting. She more said it in that way you say someone's name when they catch you off guard.

Grinning at her, I teased, "A bit jumpy today, are we?"

Maybe she tried to smile, but it looked like she just couldn't manage it. That was when I really started to worry. She sat down in the chair at the end of the table nearest to me, while I was sat at the side close to the corner. "I have to talk to you about something," she confessed, and that is what it was. A confession. She certainly looked guilty.

"What's wrong?" I asked immediately, my heart dropping into my stomach with the way she was acting.

Her hesitation only made my worry increase every second that she wasn't speaking. She wasn't looking at me, and it appeared as if she had something to say that she didn't know how to word. Finally she just spat it out, saying, "I... Zeke's gone."

Something in my brain just didn't connect. I knew what she said, knew how she said it, and with everything of his absent, I should have known. But for some reason, I didn't. My mind put up some sort of shield of denial. "Yeah, I saw that. Where's he gone off to now?" I asked nonchalantly, but I could feel the incessant poking in my head, trying to get at something.

 _Something's not right._

At that, Michonne looked up me. I didn't like that expression on her face, like she was almost pitying me. She leaned forward, holding my eye contact seriously. "No, Carl. Zeke is _gone,_ " she repeated, her tone more intense this time.

The shield shattered.

This time I understood her. "Wha- what do you mean? Where did he go?" I asked in disbelief.

"He left... Early this morning," Michonne informed me.

 _Oh._

I had been expecting this from him. Before Michonne arrived, I had already imagined Zeke slipping off just like this. For some reason, after she showed up the thought had just dissipated from my mind, as if that would keep him from leaving somehow. Obviously it didn't. Michonne wasn't a reason for Zeke to stick around anymore than I apparently wasn't.

"Oh," I echoed my thoughts aloud, staring into the space ahead of me blankly.

After a few moments of me saying nothing, Michonne tried to capture my gaze again, failing. "Carl..." she started, her voice trailing off. It barely even registered in my head that she spoke. I felt like a thin strand of calm was holding everything in me together.

It was about to snap.

And so was I.

Murmuring something dismissive like, "Left something in my room," I excused myself. Michonne looked like she was going to reach out to me and maybe try to stop me when I stood up, but if she was, I was gone too fast for that to happen. Within moments I was retreating back up the stairs.

I really tried not to slam my door, but it ended up happening anyways. My back pressed against it, and I slowly slid down into a sitting position, my knees tucking up against my chest. Resting my arms on my kneecaps, I buried my face in my hands for a second. My fingers slid up, raking through my hair until both of my hands were gripping the back of my neck tightly, like I was trying to hold myself together. It wasn't working.

It frustrated me beyond belief that I even cared that Zeke was gone, but I did, in a way that I couldn't explain. I barely knew him, yet I could feel my face contorting in anger and hurt.

 _You gonna cry? Wow, that is a new level of pathetic right there,_ something in me taunted, and it was right. But that didn't change anything. It felt like I was going to cry, or maybe scream. I was going to explode.

Practically jumping to my feet, I paced a few laps around my room, one hand pinching the bridge of my nose. My eyes were closed as I attempted to soothe myself somehow. I tried to remind myself that Michonne was downstairs, and that if she heard anything she was going to come rushing up here, but I couldn't hold it all in anymore.

I exploded.

" _Asshole!_ " I roared at the top of my lungs, as if Zeke would somehow hear me, turning to the wall near me and before I even knew what I was doing I slammed my fist into it. My fist punched right through the dry wall, and even with the anger I was still a bit surprised. That didn't stop me from pulling my hand out and repeating the violent action. Winding up for a third punch, I lost my momentum halfway through. My fist still hit the wall, but it didn't go through this time. My other hand weakly slapped against the wall, and they both stayed there.

Leaning forward, I rested my forehead against the wall between both hands. My eyes closed again and I sighed. "Why?" I whispered, the single word leaving my lips so faintly that I didn't even really hear it. _Why did you leave? Why_ couldn't _you stay?_ I thought, realizing that must have been what Zeke meant earlier.

" _I just can't..."_

After a moment or two, I heard Michonne coming up the stairs, just like I knew she would. Taking one more deep breath, I moved away from the wall and faced the door expectantly. She entered a moment later, without knocking. Her mouth opened, but she was distracted from whatever she was going to say when she saw the holes in the wall. Her gaze then flitted down to my offending hand, causing me to glance down as well.

My knuckles were bleeding. As pointless as it was, I hid my hand in the sleeve of my flannel as best as I could. Then I scowled straight ahead. "What?" I asked flatly.

"You okay?" she responded softly, answering my question with one of her own.

"Fine," I muttered, refusing to meet her eyes.

It was silent for a minute or so, but then Michonne stated, "There are holes in your wall," nodding to the wall off to my side. Though she was staring at me. Staring _into_ me. I had a feeling that she wasn't just talking about the wall that I had punched.

"Stop looking at me like that. I'm fine, _okay?!_ I didn't even know him. This is stupid," I snapped, realizing that I wasn't just snapping at Michonne anymore. That I was just as much scolding myself.

"Carl, he saved your life. It's okay t-" she began, but I didn't allow her to finish.

" _No!_ It's not! Don't you get it? I shouldn't _care_ that he left!" I exclaimed in frustration, unable to stop myself from blurting out the thought that wouldn't get out of my head.

Michonne looked at me somewhat sadly, which only served to make me more angry. "It's normal to care. You didn't really know him, but he saved your life. You wanted to know him," Michonne explained, pretty well actually. It was actually starting to make me feel better until something else crossed my mind.

"How did he get past you?" I asked, pinning her gaze with my own, staring intently as I waited for an answer. When it wasn't immediate, I continued. "You were on watch, Michonne. Why didn't you see him? Why didn't you _stop_ him?" My voice started to rise in volume as I asked the questions, not giving space in between them to answer until the last one.

For a second, Michonne looked guilty. Then she covered up the expression with another blank one. "I let him go, Carl," she finally answered, her tone neutral.

"You... you what? _Why?!_ " I demanded incredulously.

"Because he wanted to," she stated calmly.

My stare intensified, my hands grasping at air uselessly as I felt the returning need to hit something. Anger boiled inside of me, so strong that I didn't even know what to say at first. " _So?!_ Would you have just let _me_ go? Why the _hell_ did you let him? You could've _stopped_ him!" I yelled, the betrayal I felt evident in my voice.

Michonne shook her head as she said, "You know that's not the same thing." Her tone began to get defensive. "What did you want me to do? Hold him here against his will? Tie him up? I _tried_ to talk him out of it, but he didn't want to be here."

Huffing, I turned away from Michonne, frustrated with her and myself even more so. "Whatever," I muttered after a short lapse of silence, shaking my head. "He was a dick... It doesn't matter," I said, but even I knew it was more to convince myself than for anything else.

Suddenly I felt Michonne's hand on my shoulder, gently spinning me around, probably so that I would look at her. I didn't, my gaze focused on the floor. Her other hand gripped a shoulder too. "Hey. I'm sorry, Carl. Okay? I really am," she murmured quietly, her hands squeezing my shoulders comfortingly as she spoke.

Finally glancing up at her, I gave a nod. "Can we just go? I don't want to sit around here any longer. We can go scavenge or something, I don't care. I just want to do _something,_ " I tried not to beg, but I'm pretty sure that's what it came off like anyways.

"I'll wait for you downstairs," Michonne responded with a nod, releasing me before turning and walking out the door. I listened to the sound of the steps as she went back down the staircase. Then I went about collecting the remainder of my stuff, placing my hat on my head first.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it really _didn't_ matter that Zeke was gone. Sure, I had wanted him to stay, but I didn't need him around either. Truthfully, I may have wanted him to stay a bit too much for someone I barely knew. Maybe I'd be better off.

Soon, he probably wouldn't even cross my mind anymore.

* * *

 **The Sorrowful Deity :** **This makes me really want to actually get that game so I can play it. Also yes, it would have been just a tad awkward xD.**

 **Gaaahhh, I'm excited that people are actually reading this and enjoying it. So thank you to everyone who has been reading! The next chapter will be up next week like always.**


	5. Run

**(Zeke's POV)**

The past week had been monotonous.

I almost wanted to call it normal, but there was no such thing anymore. It was routine though, for me. I walked, scavenged when I needed to, and killed a lot of rotters. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, like meeting other survivors. Carl and Michonne were still the last people I had seen.

Every once in a while, I wondered about them. I wondered about Carl's reaction when he found out I was gone. I wondered about Michonne, and if the cut she had suffered at my hands was healing well. I wondered if they were even still alive. One week didn't seem like that much time, but with the world the way it was, a lot could change in a week. A lot could change in a day, or even a second.

 _Don't think about them. Crows are probably picking over their bodies right now, if there's even anything the rotters left behind,_ my logic insisted cruelly.

Frowning at the thought for a moment, I shook my head. Whether they were dead or not, it was pointless to think about. It was time to focus on the task at hand.

The task at hand being scavenging. In front of me was an old farmhouse that I had found on accident when I was on one of my hunting trips. Abandoning that, I had decided to search the place since it was here.

The whole property was somewhat hidden in the forest. I had just been walking through the trees when I suddenly emerged into the large clearing. The house didn't look very big, being only one story. Next to that, relatively close, was the barn, which was actually taller than the house, and larger all around. Behind both of the buildings was a sizable field, clearly used for crops back when someone was actually living here. There was one dirt road leading in and out of the woods.

The porch steps creaked loudly as I walked up them. Part of me thought they would give underneath my weight and snap, but they held. I walked to the window to the right of the door, using the sleeve of my coat to wipe away some of the dirt so I could see inside. It looked fairly quiet. I tapped on it repetitively with the side of one of my hatchets to draw out any potential rotters.

Nothing.

Of course that didn't mean that there wasn't anything inside, so my guard remained up. Moving to the door, I tried the handle. Locked. That wasn't a problem, and soon I had forced it open.

Everything was covered in dust. While that in itself wasn't unusual, there was certainly something different. The dust was thick. That and the orderly appearance of the place gave it a pristine feeling. I was beginning to think that nobody had been in here since the world ended. Hopefully that meant there were some supplies.

After I had swept it to make sure there were no surprises, the actual scavenging part commenced. There wasn't much in the main floor of the house. An empty gun case in the one bedroom that was there, along with drawers that were sparse of even clothing made me believe that whoever lived in this house before packed up most of what they had when everything went to shit.

Though to my surprise, there was a basement. It proved more fruitful than the rest of the house, and I found some preserved jars of food and bottles of water. Loading up everything that I could carry, I began to consider staying here for the night. Maybe even longer than that with all of these supplies. Since I had time to think about it, I went upstairs, deciding that I would check out whatever was in the barn.

Closing up the house, I walked to the other wooden building. It had three doors. Two large doors that slid open on the front and back of the reddish brown structure, and a small side door. None of them were locked. At first I went in the side door, but realizing I would have no light I slid open the front door.

Just like the main part of the house, there wasn't much of anything. Some old rusted out machinery, a workbench with a few tools, but other than that nothing. Nothing useful, but also nothing dangerous. I was picking through the place a second time just to make sure I hadn't missed anything, when I stopped. My ears were picking up something outside.

Voices. Whispers and grunts passed between people.

Footsteps that were too quiet and orderly, too deliberate to belong to the undead.

Sneaking to the very end of the front door, I crouched down and peeked out from behind the door frame.

There were people, all men as far as I could tell, who were walking through the grass towards the house. It looked like they came out of the forest from around the same place I had. Were they following me?

There were seven of them, at least seven that I could _see,_ and they were all rolling pretty heavy. Shotguns and rifles were cradled in their arms, some even automatic if I wasn't mistaken. Here for me or not, I did not want to stick around and find out.

At least they weren't looking in my direction. They were clearly focused on the house right now, marching up to it. They stopped out on the yard in front of it. There was a man with a shotgun who had gray hair, a few greasy strands of it hanging down into his face. He was the leader. I couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but I made out a few words and watched as he doled out the orders.

My eyes widened. He was sending some of them over here, I was sure of it. Done watching, I retreated back into the barn. It was time to go. My gaze locked on the back door, and I quickly moved over to it. Gripping it, I started to slide it open as quietly as possible, only needing a little bit of an opening to accommodate myself.

Then it creaked.

And it was _not_ quiet.

"What was that?" a man's voice asked.

"Shut _up!_ " another voice ordered, probably the leader's. There was no more talking after that, and it made my heartbeat pick up its pace. They were coming.

Once I had slipped out of the barn, I made a break for it, sprinting towards the woods. There was no yelling, no gunfire. Just as I was almost in the safety of the trees, thinking that maybe I had made it without them seeing me, the tree a few feet in front of me and to the right showered me with bits of bark as a bullet drilled into it.

I ran faster.

* * *

 _Run._

 _Run!_

 _RUN!_

It repeated itself in my head until it didn't even feel like a word anymore.

And I did run.

Harder than I had in a long time. I ran so hard that my muscles went numb after a while, so hard that my heart began to pound against my chest like it wanted to be free, so hard that I could barely even see where I was going anymore.

I ran for my life.

The sun was setting, and the world was retreating into twilight. The chase had been going on for hours now, and I had to admit that I would be kind of impressed with the middle-aged men behind me if I wasn't so busy being terrified.

They weren't fast enough to catch up, but they were still back there. Trailing behind me like a pack of wolves, only instead of hearing howling I heard gunshots. Bullets tore up the dirt around me, spraying chunks of earth everywhere. They scraped bark off of the trees and ripped branches from them. Basically anything near me exploded into pieces as it was shot.

When the chase had began I had been trying to zigzag to avoid being cut down by bullets, but after a while I just ended up running uncontrollably. I didn't know if I was zigzagging anymore, but whatever I was doing was working, for now.

Until I ran straight off a drop off. It wasn't a long way down, maybe seven or eight feet, but I had no idea it was there until I was already hitting the ground with a painful crunch.

That's when I knew it was over.

My right ankle was on fire. I knew I had sprained or otherwise injured it, having landed on it awkwardly when I fell. Trying to stand, I let out a hiss of pain through clenched teeth.

I could hear them now, approaching the drop off.

Looking around desperately, I tried to come up with a plan. In a way, the answer was in the problem itself. Maybe not the best answer, but the only one I had at the moment. The rocky overhang that I had ran off of created a shadow beneath it. It was dark, and there was a chance they wouldn't see me. Taking the chance, I shuffled backwards into the hiding spot as quickly and quietly as possible.

The gunfire had come to a halt, and so had the gang of men. "You see 'im?" an out of breath voice asked. Now that I was thinking about it, my breathing was fairly labored as well, and I made an effort to control it so that it wasn't too loud.

"Nah, I have no idea where he went," someone responded, and it sounded like they were standing on the very cliff I had just tumbled from. They were using it as a sort of look out point.

"Well, we saw him go off this cliff. He's gotta be hidin' out there somewhere in the trees. Now, he's just as tired as we are. We spread out an' walk, and we'll find him. Tony, you stay here and keep an eye out. If he runs, gun 'im down. Let's _move!_ " the leader ordered in an intense whisper.

 _So, this is how it ends, huh? Shot down by a bunch of middle-aged men, most of whom look like they belong on the sex offender registry. Goddammit, I should have just stayed with Carl and Michonne,_ I thought in anger, mostly at myself. If I had stayed, this probably wouldn't be happening right now.

Though it was a bit late for that now. Watching and listening as the men descended around me, I felt my heartbeat racing. I was almost sure they were going to hear it. Yet they just kept walking, their backs turned to me the entire time as they went deeper into the woods, looking around for me in all the wrong places. I couldn't believe it. It had worked.

The men moved slowly, sweeping the area for me, but of course there was nothing. They had already walked right past my real hiding place without even so much as a glance. Eventually they were pretty far ahead, and soon I wasn't even going to be able to see them anymore. Then I noticed one of them stop and and turn around. I thought it was the leader, but I couldn't really see him from this distance.

My heart stopped. As irrational as it was, I thought maybe he somehow knew I was here. Until I heard him. "Tony! You see anything?" he called back to the look out, _Tony,_ apparently. I tried not to sigh in relief too loud.

"No, nothing," Tony replied from above me.

"Okay, c'mon then. Catch up with the rest of us. We'll keep looking," the leader ordered before he faced forward again and continued walking with the rest of them.

Suddenly legs swung down from the overhang above me. He was going to jump down. The rest of the men had walked around the drop off, so they hadn't gotten very close to me. Tony, on the other hand, was going to land directly in front of me when he dropped.

 _You know what to do._

My right hand crept towards the handle of its respective hatchet, and I waited. Then the man landed in front of me with a thud, managing to stay on his feet unlike I had. His back was still turned. In the exact same instant that his feet hit the ground, I unsheathed my hatchet.

My blade swung out of the shadows as I lunged, burying it in the side of his neck. He froze for a moment, strangled gurgling noises emitting from his mouth. Then I violently ripped the hatchet out, and he spun backwards at the force of the yank I gave. The blood sprayed all over me from the gaping wound in his neck. All over my face, my clothes(which were already pretty covered in dried rotter blood by now), and my hands as I tried to sort of catch him before his body hit the ground.

The noise was what worried me. The sound that my hatchet made when it sank into his neck and sliced the artery, ending his life. The squelch it gave when I tore it out of his flesh. The thud that his body would make if it hit the ground. I knew I was dead if the others heard any of it and got suspicious. Looking up at the shadowy figures in the trees now though, as I lowered Tony's body to the ground carefully, none of them were turning around.

Taking off my backpack, I set it on the ground next to the fresh corpse. I wasn't missing the opportunity for some supplies, and I would need any guns and ammo in case his friends came after me. Or rather, _when_ they came after me. Considering I just murdered one of their buddies it was probably safe to assume they weren't just going to let me get away.

Thankfully, the man had kept a hold on the assault rifle he was carrying when I had killed him. It would've made a fair amount of noise if it had fallen to the ground. Knowing a small bit about guns, I thought that it was an M16. My father taught me that they were usually either automatic or burst fire, so at least knowing what it was could be of some use to me.

Now, I pried it from Tony's dead hands, leaning it against my backpack. As carefully as I could, I knelt down, gritting my teeth and biting back any cries of pain as my ankle protested all of this movement.

Other than just the rifle, I found a couple of filled ammo cartridges for it in his pockets, along with a black revolver slipped into the waistband of his pants. The barrel on the handgun wasn't as long as the one Carl had, but it also wasn't as short as a snub-nose. The ammo went into my own pockets, and I also shoved the revolver into the waistband of my own jeans.

Taking my hatchet from where I had left it on the ground, I used it to sever the straps of Tony's backpack. Pulling it out from underneath him, I put it near my own, deciding I would take it with me and root through it after I escaped the forest, if I even could. Raising my hatchet over my head, I was about to bring it down on the man's head and end his reanimated state before it could begin. But something stopped me.

 _Let him turn._

I hated the dead. Usually I killed them any chance I got. Only this was different. This man had tried to kill me. He deserved to turn. _Maybe he'll even get one of the others when they come back to check on him,_ I thought, lowering my hatchet and wiping the blood off on his shirt before I sheathed it.

My ankle was hurting pretty badly, but at least I could still move. I wasn't racing anyone anytime soon, but I could hopefully walk out of here before they noticed Tony was dead. Standing up slowly, I grabbed the assault rifle and quickly put on my backpack. Then I picked up the dead man's backpack. Looking ahead, I couldn't even see the rest of the men from his gang anymore.

I turned back and started to limp in the opposite direction.

* * *

The past week had been hell.

They were still chasing me, the men from the farmhouse that is. After murdering their friend, I kind of expected it, but I still admired their persistence. An entire week of hunting me down. I suppose they didn't have anything else to do, since it was the apocalypse and all. I wanted to kill them, but unfortunately, I wasn't exactly in fighting condition at the moment.

My ankle was sprained, or at least I thought it was. There wasn't much that I knew in the way of medical practice, but it definitely _felt_ like a sprained ankle. It hurt like hell, was swollen, and was discolored with an angry shade of purple. It also probably didn't help that I had next to no idea how to treat a sprained ankle. Rest? A bag of ice maybe? Neither of those things were options anyways.

At least I had a walking stick now, which made things more bearable. I probably wouldn't still be standing if I didn't. The day after I killed that guy Tony, I knew that I needed something to help me keep walking. The constant pressure on my ankle was killing me, and I was traveling at a pathetic rate. I had been looking out for something like a cane, or even a crutch, but instead I stumbled upon the sturdy looking branch after almost getting eaten by some rotters.

That was another thing. Being alone for so long, I had developed some questionable pastimes. The main one being that I hunted them. The rotters. My hatred for them transcended that of the typical apocalypse survivor, but hatred wasn't the only thing driving me. It was what made me start, but now, I wasn't even sure of my own reasons sometimes. I still hated them, but there was something else, something more. I _needed_ to kill them. Maybe it was just a way for me to channel my anger. Whatever it was, it had caused the downfall of countless rotters. Only now, I was barely able to move faster than the walking corpses, so that kind of put a damper on the activity that for me, had become routine. Instead of hunting, I tried to avoid them. Especially after fighting a group of them and realizing that it wasn't as easy with a sprained(well, probably sprained) ankle.

Due to my injury, I had to keep moving. That may sound the opposite of how it should be, but I wasn't getting things mixed up. Stopping to rest may be what was good for my ankle, but that would fail to matter if I ate a bullet. My pursuers moved faster than me now, so I couldn't afford to stop. Not to eat. Not to drink. Not even to sleep. I kept traveling through the night usually. It was the one thing I had on the men chasing me, that I was pushing myself harder. They must be making all of the regular stops, otherwise they would have caught me by now.

Over the past week, I had probably gotten a total of five or six hours of shut-eye. It may be the exhaustion, but I couldn't really remember when I had last eaten. A can of something several days ago maybe. At least I made water a priority, and I took a few drinks every day.

At first, I had just kept moving as a precaution. I had traveled all through the night after escaping the men, and then through the next day until the second night. Having seen no sign of them, I thought I had gotten away clean. Well, maybe clean wasn't the right word. I got away dirty, or _bloody,_ I suppose.

Only I hadn't gotten away at all. They had been tracking me the entire time. Almost caught up to me too, but they took a wrong turn. I actually saw this happen. Twice. If not for their lack of any real tracking skill, I would be dead. The only reason that I was thinking they had been able to follow me in the first place was my ankle. Whenever I walked through the woods, or anywhere with excess dirt, I tended to leave drag marks.

It was easier for me to walk on paved roads anyways, but that wasn't hard for them to guess either I suppose, since they were still on my trail. All they had to do was follow my drag marks to a road and then try to find clues to see which way I went. Even when they went the wrong way, I was so slow that they seemed to have time to turn back and continue the hunt.

It was only a matter of time until they caught me. I couldn't carry on like this, and I knew it. They probably did too, hanging back like vultures. There was no urgency to catch me, because they knew I was too slow to get away. While they hadn't actually seen that I was injured, it wasn't hard to tell from the tracks I left.

Sooner or later I was just going to have to make a last stand. The M16 was shoved in my backpack, the barrel of the rifle sticking out of the main pouch, and I still had the revolver as well. The backpack I had looted off of that guy's corpse had some ammo for both. I wasn't a huge fan of guns, but I could shoot. It had just been a while.

 _Maybe if I just lead them somewhere and hide... I could surprise them and get lucky,_ I thought, imagining it, and at this point seriously considering it.

 _After you've gone months without shooting and days without sleeping? Maybe you could surprise them and get dead,_ my logic argued. _Just keep moving. Don't lose your shit now._

Imagining myself against the remaining six men, my body getting riddled with bullets, I knew that it was a stupid plan anyways. My situation was just getting to that point where I was considering stupid plans, because then at least I tried _something._ But maybe it was better to just keep moving, keep hoping to find a good place to ditch my followers.

Ideally, I would find a working car. I actually knew how to drive, even though it had been a while since I had done that as well. Not to mention the fact that I would probably have to use my left foot for the pedals, but I could manage. It was better than hobbling around on a sprained ankle.

Even _better_ , now I was going up a hill. At least I was on a paved road, and it was straight. The hill wasn't all that big either. I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought had I not been injured, but at the moment every step was agony.

There was hopefully a town not far ahead of me. I thought I had seen a sign a while back, but I couldn't be sure. Maybe if there was, there would be a car there that I could use. Either way, I just had to keep moving.

Ignoring the pain and managing to traverse the hill, I was greeted by a rotter shuffling towards me. Sighing, I tried to take solace in the fact that it was only one. Raising my walking stick in defense, I pressed the end of it into the walking cadaver's chest as it tried to approach me, holding it at bay. The stick was long enough that despite the male rotter's long arms reaching for me as it snarled and snapped, I was still a few inches out of its reach.

Giving it a shove with the stick, I caused it to stumble back. It managed to keep its balance, only coming at me again. With a disgusted glare on my face, I whacked the rotter across its face with my stick, skin sliding off of its decomposing cheek and flying away from the road along with droplets of blood. The rotter was sent reeling backwards again, only more stunned this time. The end of my walking stick struck the ground as I stepped forward, my left hand reaching back and grabbing its hatchet before driving it into side of the rotter's forehead, right above an eyebrow.

Dislodging the blade from its rotting skull was harder than usual, and I barely managed it without falling down with the corpse. Though I did. So I sheathed my hatchet and continued walking. As I kept going, I started to get more hopeful that there was actually a town ahead of me. Now I was going through suburbs. The hope started to wane though as I continued, replaced with a different feeling.

It was like a sixth sense. Dread began to fill my stomach as sure as if I had just drank a gallon of hot lead. My eyes automatically started sweeping the area around me, starting with what was in front of me before I was eventually casting glances behind me, ones that I meant to appear nonchalant but were definitely not.

Sometimes I liked to think that it was some kind of survivor's sense I had developed after being alive for so long in a world where I almost certainly should have died. The back of my head felt like I had touched it to an electric fence as it buzzed. My ears started to listen, and I mean _really_ listen, picking out noises that had previously went unnoticed.

I could feel the danger in the air, as sure as if it was something tangible. Surrounding me, suffocating me.

 _My Spidey senses are tingling,_ I thought wryly, despite the fact that this was definitely not the time for jokes.

They were here.

The gang of men. Stalking through the trees behind me on either side of the road, watching me like a hunter watches a deer before raising the gun and sending a bullet right through its heart. They had caught up, for real this time. There were no mistakes, no wrong turns.

When a deer senses danger, it will run, of course. But first there is a second. In that second, the deer freezes up, and realizes that the danger is there. That second is also when the hunter realizes that the deer is about to run. That second is when the deer will either live or die, depending on how fast it can bolt, and how fast the hunter can move.

I was the deer.

A weak, injured deer, who was trying to avoid that second altogether. They couldn't know that I knew, otherwise I was dead. So, I kept walking, all throughout my revelation that they were around me, trying to flank me. Lining up the shot any second now. A house was approaching on my left. There, on the road in front of me, I made a mental mark of where I was going to run for it. The house would provide some cover as I ran into the trees.

What was my plan once I got into the trees? Well, I was working on that part. Most likely, I was going to get cut down by bullets before I even made it close, but in the event that I actually survived, the trees would provide better cover. At the moment, that was all I had.

The mark was close now. I continued my pathetic excuse for walking until I reached it, and then I suddenly veered off the road, towards the trees without hesitation. Only now, I was the equivalent of running. Speed limping might be the best term. Suffice to say, I was moving faster than I had moved since I hurt my ankle in the woods. It burned painfully at first, but then the guns started going off.

Suddenly adrenaline kicked in, and my ankle wasn't hurting so much anymore. I made it through the yard, into the shadow of the house, and now I had a real chance. My walking stick slammed against the ground so furiously each time I was surprised it didn't break.

Then a bullet ripped through it, and it did break, the bottom half dropping uselessly to the ground. I was left holding onto the top half, the end that used to be connected to the half that I lost splintered and jagged.

Another bullet tore through the side of my coat, mere inches away from ending my life. I moved impossibly faster, forcing myself to make it to the cover of the forest. Which I did. I got behind a large tree that wasn't too far in, pressing my back against it. The bullets continued to slice up everything around me, but the tree was thick enough to provide sufficient cover.

Now it was time for that last stand, whether I wanted it to be or not. I didn't have it in me to run that fast anymore, and even if I did, it wouldn't matter. The pattern of fire from my attackers was insane, bullets flying everywhere. I wouldn't make it two feet without catching at least five bullets, no matter how fast I ran.

Eventually the gunfire halted, but I knew that was only because they were moving up. Soon, they would surround me, unless I pushed them back some.

Trying to catch my breath, I took off my backpack and dropped it at my feet. I winced as I felt a pain in my side, and I realized that it was coming from the same area where the bullet pierced my coat. My hand that wasn't still holding the worthless half of my walking stick reached down and pressed to the stinging area, and when I pulled it away my hand was covered in blood. Turns out my coat wasn't the only thing the bullet tore through.

At a bit closer inspection of the wound, I sighed in relief. The bullet had only nicked my flesh. While it still hurt, it shouldn't be anything life threatening. What was life threatening however was getting distracted. Having looked down for a second, I didn't notice the approaching rotter. When I looked up again, it was on me, lunging.

My free hand(still covered in my own blood), was barely able to come up in time to grab the corpse's throat, stopping it from biting into me. It was once a woman. Fresh gunshot wounds dotted its torso, and it looked like one or two bullets had ripped through its right arm, as it was hanging uselessly at its side. The rotter's teeth snapped closed not far from my neck, and in my weakened state I almost couldn't hold it back.

Somehow I mustered up the strength, grunting as I pushed her back as far as my arm would allow, my hand closed around the throat in a white-knuckle grip. My other hand came up, stabbing the jagged end of the stick I had been holding into one of the rotter's eye-sockets. I left it embedded in the skull, releasing the corpse and watching as it fell to the ground. Wanting to fall with it and sleep for an eternity.

 _Don't think about that right now. Focus. Murderers, probably getting pretty close now._

Leaning against the tree, I was trying to catch my breath again. Despite the intense situation, I felt like I was going to fall asleep right there. But there was no time for that. I reached down to my gunshot wound, knowing I was going to regret this, but that it very well might save my life. My thumb dug into the fresh injury, and I screamed. It definitely woke me up. My breaths were still ragged, but I was done resting. Reaching down, I pulled the assault rifle out of my backpack.

When I peeked out from one side of the tree, I saw some of the guys had moved up to the house already. They were pretty close now. Raising the M16, I fired. Sparks flew up from the road as bullets struck it, and the men took cover by the front of the house.

Time to check the other side. I knew that wasn't the entire group, having only seen three guys at most. They probably split the gang in half to approach from two different sides. When I leaned out from the other side of the tree, my suspicions were confirmed. Three more men were at the edge of the trees, moving towards where I was taking cover. Another burst of gunfire for them. They retreated somewhat, each of them taking cover at a tree of their own.

For a few minutes, I managed to keep both groups pinned where they were. Gunfire exchanged between us, but it didn't really get either side anywhere. But the thing was, I was only one guy. It didn't take long for me to run out of ammo, and then I had to reload. It only took a few seconds at most, but they utilized those moments, shifting positions to move closer to me.

 _Fuck, this is going to end badly. They're flanking me. There is no way that I can keep this up for much longer. Wait. What is that noise?_

At first I wasn't sure what I was hearing. The shots that the men were taking at me made it hard to hear anything besides the initial blast from the gun and then the sound as the bullets either struck my tree or something else nearby.

I started to realize what it was when I didn't just hear it anymore.

The bodies were ahead of me, shuffling through the trees. Their groans and moans all collected together to make a terrifyingly loud noise. Like tidal waves crashing against the shore. Only this was no day at the beach. And this was not an ocean.

It was a sea of the dead.

A herd of them, directly in front of me. Slowly shuffling in my direction, no doubt attracted by the gunfire. They blended into the trees in a strange way, so it had been hard to notice them at first, but they were moving at a decent rate. Faster than I probably could right now. Soon they would engulf me, and I was in no condition to fight.

If I wasn't going to die before, I definitely was now. And more horribly at that.

 _No, no. Wait. This is good. Think about it. You can get away from the dead,_ my logic spoke from within me, and I frowned.

How could I get away from the herd when I was pinned in place? If I moved out from cover I was more than likely going to get shot.

Then I realized. "Holy shit!" a man said from behind me.

"We gotta move, boys!" another one called, only this time I think I recognized the voice. The leader, which made sense with what he was saying.

The dead might actually save my life.

Quickly packing away my M16 back into my backpack, I shouldered the heavy weight again. Unsheathing my hatchets, I turned and started to limp through the trees as fast as I could. The dead may be scaring the group who wanted to kill me away, but the mass of corpses would still tear me apart if given the chance.

"No way, this is the asshole who killed Tony!" a different voice yelled, causing me to glance over.

One of the men was standing in the road, aiming a rifle at me. Then suddenly the leader crashed into him, grabbing the barrel of his gun. "No! No more gunfire! You tryna bring the dead down 'n us?!"

The shot went off anyways, though instead of hitting its mark it blew a branch off of the tree to my left. I didn't stick around to see what happened after that, focusing on escaping. The herd was threatening to consume me, not far behind.

A hiss from my side, and then a rotter was lunging at me. I met it with one of my hatchets, sending a chunk of skull and brain flying away as I cleaved away part of its head. This process was repeated several times. I was practically a part of the herd, just barely managing to stay ahead. The wave of corpses was going to envelope me if I didn't pick up the pace.

So even though I didn't have it in me, I ran. It was harder without my walking stick, but I still managed it. Hordes of flesh-eating dead people were just as good for getting the adrenaline pumping as bullets, so soon I wasn't worried about my ankle anymore. It still hurt pretty badly, but I knew being torn apart and eaten alive would hurt much worse.

The herd still wasn't too far behind me, but I was managing to put some distance. Up ahead, I noticed that the trees finally ended. With a burst of speed, I limped for the opening even more intensely.

Emerging from the forest, I saw it. It looks like I had been heading for a town after all. I had ran through the woods going the same direction that the road led, and now here I was. It wasn't a huge town, but that was fine. Smaller towns had less of a chance of having large quantities of rotters. Of course, that was about to change for this particular town.

Eyes completely focused on taking in the town, I failed to notice what was right in front of me. Making a noise of surprise, I exclaimed, "Shit!" as I fell, rolling a couple of times. Now I was laying on my back on the overgrown grass of the lawn that was at this back part of the town where I had entered. Glancing back, I saw what I had missed before, which was a slight slope where the dirty, leaf-littered forest floor changed to the formerly well kept grass of civilization. It was so insignificant that I could have not noticed it and still not fallen over if not for my ankle.

Grunting, I quickly rolled onto my front. My hands were still filled with my hatchets, so I pressed the blunt top sides of the weapons into the ground and pushed myself back to my feet. My side stung where I was shot, and my ankle felt what I imagine an elephant stepping on it and crushing it into the ground would feel like.

 _Stop being a pussy. It's just a flesh wound. That bullet barely touched you. And your ankle isn't going to get any better after the rotters eat you. Keep_ moving, my inner logic ordered.

With a glance over my shoulder to check the herd's position, I was moving again, running(or speed limping) again. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going. There were a few nearby buildings, but they weren't all that big. The herd would tear through them in seconds to get to me.

There had to be a working vehicle around or something. Some way out. Unsure if it was the few cars in the parking lot, the size of the building, or something else altogether, my eyes suddenly locked on to a sporting goods store not far ahead of me.

Most likely, I wouldn't have time to try any of the cars. The safest bet was to just get to the building. It looked sturdy enough to stop the herd from breaking through if I could block the door in time. There was probably a back door I could slip through as well. Maybe I could lose the tidal wave of death that was close to drowning me.

Another glance back, and I realized now, as the herd was coming out of the woods, that it wasn't the full group. I think this was actually less than half. The rest of them must have followed the gang of men who had been trying to gun me down. While this made me want to sigh in mild relief, it still didn't change the fact that there was an overwhelming amount of rotters chasing me, but it did make me believe that my plan to get to the large store ahead of me could work. There definitely weren't enough rotters to tear the place down.

The structure wasn't too far away now. I just reached the edge of the parking lot. There was a rock, or a crack in the asphalt, or something, because I fell again, near collapsing next to a broken down looking sedan at the edge of the blacktop. Before the point of collapse, I actually managed to catch myself, my knees being the only thing that struck the hard ground beneath. It was hard to get up again, but I managed.

 _Fuck, I'm so tired._

Stumbling to my feet, I felt like a rotter as I shuffled on. That was, until an actual rotter surprised me as it jumped out from behind the sedan as I passed it. Only just managing to react in time, my hatchet lodged itself in the ravenous corpse's head. When it fell, I almost went with it, barely able to extract my blade from where I had buried it in the rotten skull.

When I looked up I noticed there were a couple of others in the parking lot as well, slowly shambling towards me. For now, I ignored them, my only focus making it to that building before I fell over and didn't get back up again. My vision was shaking, blurring at times. My eyes wanted to close, and I probably resembled a drunk as I limped along haphazardly with my half-lidded gaze.

Another rotter came at me. Sidestepping it, I split open its skull after its lunge failed. Then I kept moving. There was a station wagon parked directly in front of the store, right up next to the curb. It had wood paneling on the sides and reminded me of the one that Carl had taken refuge on, the day I saved his life. It didn't look as broken down as the other vehicle I had passed, and I would have probably tried it if I could think straight. Though at this point, I knew I wouldn't even be able to drive a car without crashing.

My goal was so close now. I was nearing the station wagon, just about to shuffle past the back of it when something hit me from the side, knocking me to the ground. My hatchets slipped from my weak grasp, both of them clattering to the pavement that I was now pressed against.

It was the other rotter in the parking lot, the one that was not part of the herd. It snarled into my ear, the noise resounding in my mind as I stared ahead blankly. I was so exhausted that I couldn't even be afraid. My body twisted, my hands pressing against the body weakly as it snapped at me, teeth clacking dangerously close to my shoulder. Pushing as hard as I could, I could hardly even hold it at bay. There was no way I was getting it off me, and I couldn't even take one of my hands away to grab a weapon to kill it or else it would take a chunk out of me immediately.

Even if I could keep it off of me, the herd was still approaching, not far away. They were flooding the parking lot now.I was going to die, and I knew it. Yet I was strangely calm. It must be the exhaustion. The only thing I could think about was all of this being over, so I would finally be able to sleep.

The rotter's jaws inched closer and closer to my shoulder. Any second now I expected to feel the burning agony as it ripped off flesh.

 _Goodnight, Ze-_

 _BLAM!_

An unbelievably loud gunshot reverberated throughout the entire area, the bullet blasting a huge hole in the forehead of the rotter that had been pinning me. Its head whipped backwards, the rest of its body falling off me to the side. I could have swore that I knew that gun, but there was no way...

"Zeke!" a familiar boy's voice called from behind me. My eyes followed the sound, and then I was looking at Carl Grimes, someone who I thought I would never see again. It was almost too cliché. He was standing in front of the store, both hands on his gun that was aimed at the corpses that were still walking.

Suddenly the station wagon roared to life beside me, and I almost jumped in surprise. Laughing hysterically, I pushed myself up to my hands and knees, crawling forward and grabbing both of my hatchets. I sheathed them, looking back to Carl as he walked closer to me. Though he wasn't looking at me, his focus on the herd as he fired a few more shots at them before holstering the large silver revolver he had. Then he did look at me, his eyes wide with some mix of emotions that I was far too tired to decode.

"You bit?" he asked, reaching down and helping me to my feet. One of my arms slid tiredly across his shoulders, my other hand sort of pressed against his chest as I tried to stay on my feet. A hand grabbed the wrist of my arm around his shoulders, and his other arm wrapped around my waist.

My head shook. "Shot," I mumbled tiredly. "And I think my ankle is sprained."

His eyes widened to an almost comical size, and he seemed shocked by this. "Okay. You're gonna be okay. Let's get to the car," he assured me, attempting to walk us both to the backseat of the station wagon, where the door was hanging open. Though at this point he was practically dragging me, and I think I had forgotten how my feet worked.

" _Carl_ , let's go!" another familiar voice called, a woman this time. She was dark-skinned, with long hair hanging down in thick dreadlocks. Though her name wasn't coming to me. Something with an "M" maybe? I tried to focus on her, but things were definitely blurry now.

"Zeke, come _on!_ You're gonna have to give me something to work with here!" Carl growled, pulling me forward another few steps.

"Carl, I..." I began, trailing off because I wasn't even sure what I was going to say. Oh, that and because everything was going dark. Now my eyes _were_ shutting, whether I wanted them to or not. I tried to force them to stay open, really, but it wasn't working anymore. My arm slipped off of Carl, and the last thing I saw before I passed out was the entire earth spinning as I hit the ground.

"Zeke!"

"Jesus!"

Then everything went black.

* * *

 **The Sorrowful Deity:** **Thanks, I'll think about it xD. And I feel like the show just skips over winter every time... I don't even know XD.**

 **Strife4Life:** **A good idea, but nah. The zombies are going to remain simple Walking Dead zombies. Thank you for the input though :D.**

 **Ms. Jackson53:** **No. No, you are not wrong at all. You are spot on actually! Great job, gaaahhhh. I loved this review so much.**

 **KMCCL3:** **I shall! Haha, thank you for the nice review.**

 **thewalkerinme:** **XD you got your wish. Well, sort of.**

 **NoisySunday:** **I literally died at your review. Thank you soooo much, it was so amazing! One of my favorites by far. And here is how they meet up again! I didn't make people wait that long haha, but those were all great ideas.**

 **Thank you everyone for the kind reviews! I am probably going to start sounding like a broken record with this, but I love that you are all enjoying this and reviewing. Your reviews literally fuel me.**


	6. Dead Sleep

**(Carl's POV)**

Two weeks.

It had been two weeks since I'd seen this asshole, and suddenly he just showed up outside the sporting goods store that Michonne and I happened to be scavenging in.

At first I thought I was imagining that it was him. I knew there was a person outside, limping across the parking lot with a small herd of walkers following him, but it couldn't be Zeke. My mind had to be tricking me.

Only it wasn't. Zeke was really there, about to be bitten by a walker. There was no hesitation on my part after he fell to the ground. I ran outside and put a round in the corpse's head, dropping my bag of supplies as I went.

Michonne put all of our stuff in the station wagon(It was the same one from the neighborhood where I had met Zeke. Michonne and I had found the keys in the house it was parked in front of.) and started it up, opening the back door closest to Zeke and I as I tried to almost drag the larger teenager to the vehicle. He was taller than me, and he weighed more. So, it wasn't hard to imagine that I was having a bit of difficulty.

That turned into a lot of difficulty when he decided to fall over. Okay, okay. I'm sure he didn't _decide_ to fall over, but regardless, it was a pain in the ass. I mean, it's not like I was worried or anything, it was just... annoying. Yeah, that was it.

"Zeke!" I shouted with a _not_ worried tone. My hands tried to hold onto him, but it happened so fast. One minute, he was next to me, not pulling his own weight in the slightest, and the next, he was on the ground.

"Jesus!" Michonne exclaimed from where she was on the other side of the station wagon. She had been about to get into the driver's seat, probably assuming I could handle this on my own, but once she saw Zeke fall over, she rushed to my side.

Turning towards the scarily fast approaching herd of walkers, I drew Dad's revolver with one hand, rapidly firing the last two shots in the cylinder at what I deemed to be the two nearest undead figures. It felt good to feel the jolt in my hand as the gun went off. Michonne and I had found a good amount of ammo in the store, but this was also the first time I had managed to get ammo since I ran out the day I met the boy who was currently laying unconscious on the asphalt. I had been using my knife for the past two weeks, when I had to.

"Help me get him in!" Michonne grunted from my side, and when I holstered the weapon and turned to her, I saw that she was pulling Zeke up. Grabbing his other arm, I lifted. He was only made heavier now that he was a dead(not literally, I hoped) weight, not to mention that he had his huge hiking backpack on. It looked rather full of supplies, and the muzzle of a gun poked out from the largest pouch. We tried to sort of stuff him in, but it wasn't working too well.

"Wait, I got this!" I yelled over the increasingly loud moans and snarls of the herd as they got closer. Crawling into the vehicle, behind Zeke, I pulled him in the rest of the way while Michonne pushed him towards me. Once he was fully inside, she slammed the door shut and ran around to the driver's seat.

The herd was unbelievably close now. One walker growled as it slammed itself against the side of the station wagon, its hands splayed out on the back window of the passenger side. It stared at Zeke and I hungrily. Michonne started driving, and we sped away before any more of the dead reached our vehicle.

Zeke was sort of laying against me, but his backpack was underneath him, awkwardly pushing him up and keeping him from actually laying down. I knew he was passed out, but still, that couldn't be comfortable. Reaching out, I was about to lift him up a bit and take off his backpack when I stopped, my arms retreating.

 _Should just leave the jerk like that. I should've left him to get eaten out there too,_ I thought angrily, yet I didn't mean the second thought in the slightest. Sure, I was mad at Zeke for being an asshole. I was mad that he left. Though actually holding that against him enough that I would leave him out there wasn't something I would ever do. The thought didn't cross my mind for a second, not when he was actually in danger. Even if it hadn't been Zeke, I still would have helped whoever it was that was there. Leaving people to die when you could save them was wrong. That wasn't who Dad raised. He would have saved Zeke too, if he was here.

Trying not to think about that, I glared at the unconscious boy beside me. Breathing a quiet sigh, I pushed Zeke forward enough that I could slip the straps of his backpack off of his shoulders, laying it on the floor. Lowering him to lay down again, now he was on me, his head in my lap. There was really nothing I could do about that, so I just let him be, as irritating as it was. I tried to ignore the fact that I was really irritated because Zeke's head in my lap _didn't_ bother me.

He looked like he had been through hell since the last time I had seen him. I mean, I couldn't _see_ that his ankle was hurt right now, but I knew it was from what he had told me and the way he had been limping. There was also a tear in the side of his shirt, exposing a gash. That must be the gunshot wound he was talking about. It looked like it only grazed him thankfully, but it still looked painful. It must have just happened, because blood was soaking into his shirt around the wound. Blood was everywhere really. He was covered in it. Was Zeke always covered in blood? It seemed that way. A lot of it looked like the typical dark walker blood that I had gotten used to seeing him coated in, but there were patches of a lighter shade of crimson, staining his hands, his face. It wasn't all the blood of the dead, and I got the suspicion that it wasn't all Zeke's blood either.

Despite how rough he looked, right in this moment, Zeke also looked more peaceful than I had ever seen him. I was used to seeing either a stoic or an angry expression set into his features. Now his eyes were closed, his mouth slightly hanging open. Just a normal sleeping expression I guess, but it was different in a way. Maybe it was because I hadn't ever seen him asleep before. Impulsively, the hand that was closest to the older boy reached out to touch him. My fingers brushed through his bangs before I even realized what I was doing, but as soon as I did, I retracted my hand immediately, as if I had been burned. I stuffed the extremity underneath my leg, almost like I was scolding it. Glaring down at it and Zeke.

Looking up, I swore I saw Michonne's eyes in the rear-view mirror, darting away from where I was in the back to look at the road again. I really hoped that she hadn't been watching me. Honestly, I would be pretty embarrassed. I didn't need her thinking I had some kind of disturbing fascination with Zeke. Shrugging it off, I assumed(and hoped) that it was just me being paranoid.

"Where are we going?" I asked, glancing out the windows on each side of me, before looking out the large back window. We were just leaving the town, and I could still see the large group of walkers trying in vain to chase after us.

"I'm not sure yet. We just need to put some distance between us and all those walkers back there. Probably find a good place to stop so we can check him out. How's he doing back there?" Michonne asked.

Glancing from Zeke's unconscious figure to Michonne(even though she wasn't looking at me), I answered hesitantly with, "Um... he's not looking so good."

Now, Michonne did look at me, only for a second(in the rear-view mirror of course since she was still driving), asking, "Do we know what's wrong with him? The way he passed out back there... I don't want to jump to any nasty conclusions, but is he bit?"

"No," I said immediately, shooting down the theory. He wasn't bit. Zeke told me himself that he wasn't.

 _Zeke isn't exactly a team player. She's right, he could easily be bitten. You saw how he was back there,_ some part of my mind argued, but I wasn't having any of it.

"It looks like a bullet grazed his side. Before he passed out, he told me he was shot, and that he thought his ankle might be sprained," I continued, relaying to Michonne what Zeke had told me and looking down to him as I said it. Grazed or not, his side was bleeding profusely. Not as bad as if a bullet had actually entered his body, like when I got shot, but enough to be worrying. To someone. Obviously not me.

Reaching down to his backpack, I started to rifle through it for some gauze. At this point, I didn't really care if Zeke wouldn't appreciate this much if he was awake. The fact was, he wasn't awake, and I was doing this for _him_ anyways. Finding what I needed, I pressed a wad of the gauze to his wound and applied pressure with both of my hands as best as I could. The angle was a bit awkward since there wasn't the most space and he was still laying against me, but I made it work. "Michonne, this is bleeding _a lot._ We need to stop somewhere," I insisted.

"Okay. Just let me find a good place," she responded quickly, trying to pacify me. It worked somewhat. I mean, I still wanted us to stop right this second, but I stopped talking about it. Repeating myself wouldn't find us a suitable place to stop at any faster.

After another ten minutes or so of driving down the same road, Michonne finally started pulling into a long driveway. It wound through the woods, and I wondered what made her choose here. Though really I was too focused on Zeke to ask. Every minute or so I was looking down at him to make sure that I could still see the rise and fall of his chest. It was the only way that I knew he was still alive since he was unresponsive.

It probably only took a minute or so to get to the end of the long driveway, but it still felt way too long. As soon as Michonne parked the vehicle, I wanted to get out and get Zeke into the house, but I forced myself to stay where I was. Glancing away from Zeke, I was pretty sure I understood why Michonne chose this place now.

It was fairly isolated. Just a single house, surrounded by woods. The likelihood of the herd of walkers from the town we had been in finding their way here was slim, as long as we didn't make a bunch of noise. There was only one solitary walker that we could see, and it started shuffling towards us from its place near the tree line as soon as it saw our vehicle.

Michonne turned the car off and set the keys on the dash. She turned around to actually face me, her arm propped across the two front seats. Her eyes took in Zeke and his appearance for a quick glance, before moving back to me. Giving me a serious look, she said, "I'm going in there to clear the house." At this, I opened my mouth to protest, because surely, there was no reason for her to do it herself.

" _No,_ you are not coming with me. It shouldn't take me long at all. You need to stay out here with him. Try to stop that bleeding. I'll be out in a minute. Be ready to help me carry him in when I am," she ordered sternly, snatching up her sheathed sword from where it was standing on the floor, leaned against the middle console.

As she was getting out of the station wagon, I called after her frustratedly with, "It's not _going_ to stop. He probably needs stitches. It's useless for me to-" only I was cut off when she slammed the door on me without another word. Glaring, even though she wasn't looking at me, I watched as she dispatched the single walker before heading inside the house.

It looked fairly nice. It had sort of a cabin feeling about it, columns with stones set in them holding up the section of roof that jutted out over the front porch. I think it had two floors. The house was sort of set into a hill, so the front door looked like it actually led right to the upstairs portion. It was painted a light brown color.

A few moments later Michonne came back out the front door, leaving it wide open. She walked over to where I was in the vehicle, in the back seat of the driver's side. Opening up the door, she said, "It was clear. A bit ransacked, but actually pretty nice. No corpses, and it doesn't smell like death."

Nodding, I pulled the gauze away from Zeke's wound. It was soaked in his blood now. I tossed the soiled thing out the door past Michonne, before getting out as well, annoyed with myself for the careful way I laid Zeke's head down on the seat of the car as it slumped out of my lap. "How are we doing this?" I asked, looking from the unconscious boy to Michonne.

Without explanation, she leaned into the vehicle. Her arms slipped under his armpits, and she dragged him back. Before he was fully out of the station wagon, she glanced at me and grunted, "Get his legs." Complying, each of my hands grabbed one of his legs, me standing in between them. "Jeez, he is heavier than he looks," she commented as we carried him towards the house, and I grumbled something unintelligible in agreement.

The front door opened up into a foyer, and then we were in the kitchen. Michonne was leading, so I simply followed her further, trying not to drop Zeke's legs. We stopped at the living room, and Michonne nodded to what looked like a makeshift bed on the floor, the cushions from the couch covered in a few blankets. "We'll set him here," she murmured, and I nodded in understanding. Carefully, we laid him down.

Sighing in relief, I regarded Michonne with a questioning look. "Did you make that bed for him?" I inquired, eyebrows raised.

Fixing me with a look, she rolled her eyes. "As a matter of fact, I did. Are you jealous?" she teased, a small smirk blooming on her face.

It was my turn to roll my eyes now. "Nope. Just thinking that you really must have forgiven him for tearing your vest," I remarked with amusement.

The smirk turned into a smile, and she shook her head at me before crouching down by Zeke. She seemed to be inspecting him. After a moment of contemplation, she asked, "Do you know which ankle it is?" She didn't have to explain what she meant by that, and I knew she wanted the injured one.

"Uh, the right one, I think," I replied, slightly unsure, but that was the one I remembered him dragging along. I watched as Michonne carefully removed the hiking boot of the allegedly maimed ankle, before doing the same with the sock. A very swollen, very diversely colored ankle was revealed. It had to be at least three times its normal size. As well as that, I was pretty sure that ankles weren't ever supposed to be that color. Michonne and I both nearly grimaced.

At the foot of Zeke's bed, there was a glass coffee table. Considering Michonne made the bed, I realized now that placement was probably strategic as she very carefully elevated his ankle there. I didn't have to ask how she knew that would help him. Back at the prison, Michonne had sprained her own ankle when she was coming back to help after she heard the gunshots. That was when D-block went to hell due to that virus. "I'll look around for some compression wraps soon," she seemed to mutter to herself more than me, looking at the ankle thoughtfully. Then she stood back up. "Let's go get the rest of our gear."

We hauled everything from the station wagon inside, including Zeke's backpack. That thing was heavy. It's a wonder he didn't pass out long before he chanced upon us. I set it near him, leaning it against the couch.

Michonne pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, some bandages, and gauze from our things and set them on the coffee table. She also found a needle and thread in the house, setting that out with the rest of the medical supplies. Staring from that, to the gash where the bullet skimmed across Zeke's flesh, I looked at Michonne after a few moments. "Are you gonna be able to stitch him up?" I asked, trying not to sound to doubtful or worried, which admittedly I was a bit of both. Not because I didn't believe in her or anything, but because as far as I knew it wasn't an easy thing to do.

She considered the question for a moment, staring off into space. Eventually, she nodded, looking down at the unconscious male, probably looking at the area that needed stitching in particular. "I think so. My stitch work won't be top notch, but I've watched Hershel do it. It's not exactly rocket science. I'll have to wait until he wakes up though," she explained.

Up until her last words, I was nodding along in encouragement. Then, my eyes widened and I looked at her like she was crazy. "What? Why?! Isn't it better to do it now when he doesn't have to feel it?" I asked, trying and failing not to seem worried about Zeke's well being.

Shaking her head immediately, Michonne calmly answered with, "No. If he wakes up in the middle of it, he'll have no idea what's going on. He would probably move, end up making his wound worse. Not to mention the emotional trauma of waking up to someone stabbing things into his body. Is there a chance that he's so out of it right now that I could stitch him up, and he wouldn't even move? Sure, but I'm not going to risk it. It's better to wait so that he can mentally and physically prepare himself. It's not going to feel the best, but he'll be okay."

Letting the explanation sink in for a moment, I nodded after I understood. "Are we going to wake him up then?" I questioned, staring at the bleeding wound.

"You can give it your best shot, but I doubt that we could. I'm not sure what happened to him out there, but he passed out for a reason. He looks like he's been through hell. I think we just need to let him sleep until he wakes up himself," Michonne suggested, and even though I didn't particularly like that idea, I knew she was probably right.

"Well, I'm all for letting him sleep. But if you can't stitch him shut without him being awake, and we can't wake him up, how are we going to stop the bleeding?" I asked skeptically.

Kneeling down next to him, Michonne lifted Zeke up the slightest bit. She briefly glanced up at me and ordered, "Take those hatchets off of him." Doing as I was told, I leaned over and lifted the sheathes over his head one at a time, setting them over by his backpack. I didn't really have to ask why, assuming that they were in the way. She laid him down all the way again, standing back up. "Take his shirt off too," she said next.

This time I was asking why.

"W-wh-what? Why?" I stuttered lamely, even though I shouldn't have really had to ask. It was more just something I said out of surprise than a question that I needed an answer to. My face was heating up, I could feel it.

"We need to treat his wound. Clean it. Bandage it. It won't stop the bleeding, but it will slow it down. His shirt is in the way. Besides, that thing is filthy. It definitely won't help him to not get an infection," Michonne answered, walking off to some other room.

"Why do I have to take it off?" I called after her, realizing that I was being somewhat childish, but also not really caring.

Michonne came back with a cloth, setting it down on the coffee table with the other medical supplies. She looked at me incredulously, hands on her hips, and that was when I realized she was suppressing a smile.

 _Is she enjoying this? How did she even know it would make me uncomfortable?!_ I thought hysterically, internally screaming.

"You need to _cut_ it off. Sorry. Should've clarified that. Your knife is safer than my sword," she replied, watching me expectantly. Her expression was serious, but her eyes told me the real story. She was definitely enjoying this.

My eyes locked onto Michonne's, and I stared. And stared. And stared. I stared so hard, I would not have been surprised if my eyes popped out of my head. This only frustrated me more however, because Michonne did the worst possible thing in reaction to my staring. She snickered. It was only for the smallest sliver of a second, and she stifled the noise, glancing away from me and pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. But I knew on the inside she was dying of laughter.

" _Fine,"_ I finally responded, the single word sounding murderous as my staring turned into scowling. Reluctantly, I moved to kneel beside Zeke. I unsheathed my knife slowly, unable and unwilling to imagine how mortified I must look right now.

 _Okay. This is not weird. I'm doing this purely for medical purposes,_ I tried to tell myself, but then my mind circled back to the fact that I was _undressing Zeke._ While he was asleep. This was going to be awkward no matter what I told myself.

"You can just give me the knife and I'll do it if you're too nervous," Michonne quipped. When I glared up at her, I saw that despite her teasing she was also probably actually waiting for me to get this done. She was busying herself too, soaking the cloth she had grabbed with some peroxide, no doubt to clean out Zeke's wound like she said whenever I finally cut his shirt away. She grinned knowingly at me.

Other than the glare, I only gave a huff in response. My focus was on Zeke again, and now I was actually leaning over him. The collar of his shirt was where I started, and I carefully cut down, my arm moving back and forth in a sawing motion until I had sliced the article of clothing open all the way to the hem. I sheathed my knife, trying not to look at the other boy's naked torso beneath me as I pulled the shirt out from under him, chucking it off to the side. My face was burning in embarrassment.

"Here," Michonne murmured from above me, and her hand was held out with the peroxide-soaked cloth. Since I had already gone this far, I just took it without question, knowing what to do. Thankfully, she had stopped tormenting me about the fact that there was a shirtless Zeke in front of me, now busying herself with getting a bandage ready.

Bringing the cloth to the bloody gash in Zeke's side, I started to clean the wound as best as I could. I knew Zeke was out cold, but I was expecting some kind of reaction anyways. Maybe a furrowing of the eyebrows, a twitch of his fingers, _something._ Peroxide in an open wound may be good to stave off infection, but it did _not_ feel good. The more severe the wound, the more it hurt. At first, I didn't really notice it, but as I went on, I looked at him and frowned, realizing that he was as motionless as if I wasn't touching him at all. The only movement he gave was the steady rise and fall of his chest. At least that hadn't gone away. Yet.

"He's like Dad," I finally stated as I continued to watch him. It was the same dead to the world unconscious state that Dad had slipped into and never came out of. At least, never came out of _alive._ Having finished cleaning out the wound in his side, I set the wet, bloody cloth off to the side. Michonne was frowning down at me when I glanced up.

"No. You don't know that. I'm sure he'll be fine," she tried to reassure me. She didn't have to ask what I meant, because I had told her what happened with Dad, how he was before he died. There was no warning either. One minute, he was laying there unconscious, but still _there._ Then he was just gone. I probably wouldn't have even noticed until the next morning if he hadn't turned.

" _You_ don't know _that,_ " I countered, glaring at her briefly before turning my glare to Zeke.

Michonne gave a sigh. "There's no point talking about it now. We can't control it. All we can do is try to treat him and hope he wakes up," she said, kneeling down on the other side of Zeke with the bandage and some gauze. "Now, let's get this bandage on him."

The gauze was pressed against his injury first, by me, and then we were attempting to wrap the bandage around his midsection. We ended up pulling his arms out of his coat since it was kind of in the way, but we simply left it underneath him afterwards. Getting the bandage on was kind of difficult since he was laying on his back, but we managed to roll him onto each side and successfully finish treating the wound as best as we could for now.

Michonne stood up, collecting the filthy, cut open shirt Zeke had been wearing and the cloth that I had used to clean out the gash in his side. She threw both of the soiled pieces of fabric outside, before grabbing her backpack. Still kneeling on the floor beside him, I had been watching Zeke stupidly, as if I was waiting for him to wake up any second now. _He probably won't wake up at all,_ I tried(and failed) not to think negatively. Though when Michonne started putting on her backpack, I was snapped out of my trance. Fixing her with a questioning look, I asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to look for compression wraps for his ankle, and whatever else I can find," she answered. When I moved to get up, her hand rested on my shoulder and gently pressed me back down. "No, Carl," she murmured softly, shaking her head. "You need to stay here and look after him," she said, tipping her head at Zeke.

My head immediately shook in defiance. "No way!" I exclaimed in disbelief. Michonne's hand fell off of my shoulder as I stood up. "He'll be fine here. You need me way more out there. There's no way I'm letting you go out by yourself," I continued, shaking my head again.

"Carl," she said tiredly, her gaze locking on to mine.

"Michonne," I shot back in exasperation.

"I'm used to going out by myself. I'll be okay. If we both leave, Zeke will be defenseless," she reasoned.

"We'll lock up the house. He doesn't look like he's waking up any time soon. There won't be any noise, no walkers will even try to get inside!" I argued.

"What about people?"

"Well, then he better wake up," I said flatly.

Michonne's head tilted to the side and she gave me a look. "You don't mean that," she stated.

Sighing, I looked away, glancing at Zeke briefly. "No... I don't. But something could happen to you out there just as easily as it could happen to him here!" My eyes focused on her again.

"Nothing is going to happen to me."

Shaking my head in disagreement, because no, she didn't know that, I asked, "Well, where are you planning to find this stuff, huh? The best place to look is the town we just came from, but that herd that was following Zeke is back there." Michonne glanced away from me, remaining silent. That was all the answer I needed.

"Are you crazy? You can't go back there! Just stay here, Zeke's ankle will heal without being wrapped," I insisted.

"We'll need other things too. There isn't much peroxide left. Bandages, gauze, all of that. At the rate he's bleeding, that bandage will have to be changed a couple of times before he wakes up, at least. I gotta go, Carl. I'm leaving the station wagon here. I'll go on foot. It will take me longer, but I can't risk attracting too much attention," she explained.

Finally relenting, I sighed and nodded. My gaze had fallen to the floor. "Just don't die..." I began, looking up to meet her eyes. "Okay?"

Michonne smiled at me and nodded slowly and meaningfully. "Lock the door behind me if I'm not back before dark," she instructed, turning and heading for the door.

"Wait," I blurted out, almost not even meaning to. She stopped, turning and raising an eyebrow in question. I wasn't even sure what I wanted to say. Then I realized that I _was_ sure, and that I didn't want to say anything. Striding forward, I wrapped my arms around Michonne in a hug. She seemed a bit shocked at first, but her arms soon came up and reciprocated.

We didn't do this often. We actually hadn't hugged since that night before Zeke left. Though there was another thing we hadn't done since Zeke left. And that was be apart. Michonne was the last person I had left. The last member of my family. Sometimes I liked to think that some of the others were out there. We couldn't have been the only ones who made it out of the prison, but whenever I started thinking like that, it never took long for my brain to ridicule that particular train of thought for being too optimistic.

 _That battle was a slaughter,_ it would tell me.

 _Even if any of the others survived, you're never going to see them again,_ it would taunt.

When my mind was feeling especially vicious, it would say the worst thing of all. _Your dad made it out, but that didn't do him much good, did it?_

It was too painful to think about the others. So Michonne was it. And I knew it was only a stupid, simple run for some medical supplies and whatever else she could find that was useful. Herd or not, I knew that chances were, she would be fine. She used to go out all the time on her own. The truth was, she was probably _better_ on her own, faster, more effective.

None of that stopped me from worrying.

Releasing Michonne, I stepped back and nodded. The motion wasn't really a "yes" to anything, more so just my nonverbal way of telling her that she could go now, that I wasn't going to stop her again. She mirrored the gesture, nodding back to me in understanding.

Then she was gone.

I watched her walk away, standing in the doorway, until she disappeared into the forest and I couldn't see her anymore. Pulling the front door shut, I walked back to the living room. It was just Zeke and I now. I stood near his makeshift bed, glaring down at him. Naturally, I blamed him for Michonne having to go on the run.

It wasn't really his fault, and I knew that of course. Truthfully, I was just angry at him for leaving, so it wasn't hard to take out my worry and frustration about Michonne being out there by herself out on Zeke. Him being asleep made it even easier. "She shouldn't even be out there. You're just gonna die anyways, asshole," I growled.

Guilt gnawed at my insides almost immediately after saying that, but I ignored it with everything I had. I didn't want Zeke to die. Even though I wouldn't admit it, I actually really wanted him to _not_ die. Yet that didn't change anything. It didn't change the fact that I was sure he would die. When I looked at him, all I saw was my dad. The injuries were different, but that dead sleep was the same.

This time I was bracing myself for impact. Bracing myself for the moment when he woke up as one of the dead, and I had to put a bullet in his brain.

Sitting down next to Zeke, on the floor, I crossed my legs and watched him. At first I tried not to, but there was no one around to catch me this time. It was like I was too fascinated to look away. Earlier, I really hadn't been looking at his bare torso after taking his shirt off, other than the occasional glance. I had been focused on treating his gunshot wound, and then after I had been way too worried about Michonne catching me staring. I was still trying not to think about why she had been teasing me like she had. It was almost like she knew about the abnormal feelings I was having for the other boy. I really hoped that wasn't the case.

Now, my eyes were hungrily taking in every detail. It wasn't surprising to me that Zeke's chest and abdomen were somewhat muscular. I had seen the muscle tone of his arms, so I had imagined(or rather tried not to imagine) the rest of his body was similar. He wasn't ripped by any means, but he also wasn't lanky like me either.

After an embarrassingly long amount of staring, my face started to burn as I realized what I was doing. Wanting to keep myself occupied, I stood up and decided to look around the rest of the house. I had only seen the first few rooms, not having ventured past the living room. So I explored. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom on the upper floor we were on, other than the rooms I had already seen. A spiral staircase descended from the living room to the lower level.

The stairs ended at what was almost a second living room, with another couch, a couple of armchairs, and a second television. Other than that, there were a few more bedrooms, a laundry room, and a storage closet on the lower level. It wasn't necessarily a mansion, but it was clear from the looks of the house that whoever lived here before had a good amount of money. Of course, that didn't matter much now.

Finding a book that looked promising on a shelf in the downstairs living room, I went back upstairs. I slumped down on the floor, leaning against the couch. Next to me was Zeke's huge backpack along with his hatchets, and the owner of said gear was in front of me. This time there was more space in between us though, and I was able to fully stretch my legs out on the floor without them even touching Zeke or the bed he was laying on.

My hands opened up the paperback, and I began to read. It was hard to focus. I was only half-digesting the words, and my mind was really fixed on worrying instead of reading. Worrying about Michonne, trying to picture what she was doing. Trying not to picture her being caught by the herd of walkers and violently ripped apart, or meeting a different, yet equally gruesome, end. Worrying about Zeke, trying not to get my hopes up about him waking up. Trying to prepare for what I was sure was coming.

After a while though, I managed to lose myself in the book, pushing all my other thoughts aside. It was a welcome reprieve from the real world. For hours I read, until finally I looked up to check on Zeke and saw that the sun would be setting soon. The dying, bright orange rays bathed the house in light wherever there was a window. Soon though, there wouldn't be enough light to read. I could always get out a flashlight, but I was actually getting bored of it anyways.

Folding over the corner of the page that I was on, I shut the book and set it down on the floor. My gaze fell on Zeke again. That same steady rise and fall of his chest was still there, but it was still all that was there. The only sign that he was even alive. One of the beams of sunlight shined through the living room window and fell directly across Zeke's face. Still peaceful. Asleep. Also still covered in a spray of dried blood.

Sighing, I stood up and went to the bathroom. I found another cloth in a cupboard that was in the room, similar to the one Michonne had given me to clean out Zeke's gunshot wound. Then I went back out to where the other boy was. After a moment of looking through my backpack, I pulled out a mostly full bottle of water. Unscrewing the cap and placing the cloth against the top, I tipped the bottle to wet the cloth.

 _You shouldn't be wasting it,_ part of me thought. It was probably right, but I ignored it since it was already done. We had a good amount of water anyways.

Moving over to Zeke, I knelt down directly behind his head. My shadow covered his face as I leaned over it. My free hand gently pressed against the side of his head while my hand with the cloth started using it to wipe away the dried blood on his face. This reminded me of the night Zeke and I were together, before Michonne found us. He pulled away then, when I was trying to help him clean the blood off of his face. I froze when I remembered how his head jerked backwards distrustfully.

"What am I even doing?" I asked quietly, shaking my head at myself. Here I was, taking care of someone who didn't even like me. Who left me without saying goodbye. And I was, what? Coddling him?

My lips turned downwards in a frown. Soon, I was glaring at Zeke. I scoffed, not sure if it was directed at me or at him. Maybe both. Standing up, I hurled the cloth over the banister and down into the bottom floor angrily. I stepped away from Zeke, pacing back and forth for a minute before stopping to scowl at the other boy again. "You're such an asshole," I stated with contempt.

There was no response. Only the near inaudible sound of his breathing.

"I hate you," I continued, calm at first.

"I _hate_ you!" I screamed it this time, stepping forward and jabbing an accusing finger in Zeke's direction.

It wasn't true. I knew it wasn't. I could scream it however loud I wanted, but it wouldn't make it true. That frustrated me terribly.

Zeke was an asshole to me. He treated me like I wasn't worth his time, like I was some burden, and ultimately he left. For two weeks, I didn't see him, but he was still on my mind the entire time.

Because Zeke saved my life. Selflessly. He didn't ask for anything after it was over, hell he didn't even _want_ anything. He risked his own life again when Michonne was breaking in, and he thought she was an enemy. Sure, it was probably just for himself. Though the thought had crossed my mind that maybe it was to protect _me._ I never told him, but I had heard Michonne interrogating him. He must have thought that she was there to hurt me, because he wouldn't tell her the truth. Not even after she was getting ready to kill him.

My feelings for Zeke were muddled. Thinking about it for too long was enough to drive me crazy, and on top of all of that, I had some kind of stupid attraction to him. _Zeke_ drove me crazy, but I didn't hate him. Even when I tried to hate him.

All but collapsing to my knees next to him, I wasn't glaring at Zeke anymore. Just looking at him. One of my hands ran up into my hair, underneath my hat, almost knocking it off. "Just wake up," I breathed tiredly.

* * *

Michonne returned that night, thankfully. She had found the compression wraps, along with some other things. She wrapped Zeke's ankle, and we changed his bandage again since he had bled through it. Then we went to bed.

I had another nightmare. It wasn't surprising really, since I had them pretty consistently now. If I was remembering correctly, I had had one every night since my dad died. At least none of them had been as bad as the one that Zeke had interrupted. I wish I could say it was because I was getting used to the nightmares, but I wasn't. Though I had yet to wake up screaming again, so there was that silver-lining.

Usually, I just woke up and cried. It was always at night, so it was safe to cry for the most part. No one would see me. I hated it when people saw me cry, even Michonne. Other than the night she found me, I hadn't cried in front of her. I was pretty sure that she didn't even know about my nightmares. We typically slept in separate areas, and whenever there was a chance that she could see me, I didn't cry when I woke up. I just swallowed the pain like usual and tried to go back to sleep.

The next day was pretty uneventful. We stayed in, used the day to rest and recharge. We had enough food and water to last us for at least the next few days, so we didn't have to go on any runs. Or rather, Michonne didn't, because I knew she would make me stay back with Zeke if she had.

Zeke still didn't wake up. Michonne and I changed his bandage several times throughout the day whenever he bled through them. Michonne had brought back more bandages and gauze, so at least we had enough for him. For the time being.

Now it was the third day of Zeke's unconsciousness. I had already been skeptical that he would survive. At this point I was almost sure he wouldn't. Michonne and I had just finished stripping him of an old bandage and were getting ready to put on his millionth new one. She was on his injured side this time, inspecting the gash before we put on the new bandage.

"Dammit," she muttered underneath her breath, sighing. Currently she was crouched next to him, her fingers resting against his torso next to the wound.

"What is it?" I asked from his other side, the bandage in my hand as I waited.

"I was really hoping that if we kept this clean, it would be enough. But I don't think it will be anymore. I'm pretty sure we're gonna need some antibiotics. I looked for some a couple of days ago when I went out, but I couldn't find any," she explained, glaring at Zeke's gunshot wound.

"Antibiotics? Michonne, he hasn't moved for like, two days. Even if some antibiotics fell into our laps, how could we give them to him?" I asked doubtfully.

Michonne glanced up at me with an unreadable expression on her face. "For when he wakes up, Carl," she stated.

Sighing, I shook my head before meeting Michonne's eyes. "We don't know if he _will_ wake up," I replied pessimistically, my gaze falling to Zeke, and my head shook again.

Michonne began to stare at me. I could feel her dark orbs locked on me. It was a strange coincidence, the way her eyes were almost the same color as Zeke's. I believed there was a slight variation though. Maybe if Zeke did wake up I would stand them side by side one day and compare. Though I doubted I would ever get to make that comparison.

My own eyes didn't meet hers. If anything they purposefully avoided the contact. After a few moments, she simply said, "Let's put the new bandage on."

It was like clockwork now. Within a few minutes Zeke's midsection was wrapped in another new bandage. After it was done, I went to the room I had been sleeping in to retrieve my book. I was just about finished with it now. When I came back out into the living room, Michonne was wearing her backpack over where her sword was hanging on her back.

Our eyes met, and I glared. Her expression was impassive as usual. "No," I said simply, even though I definitely had no authority over her.

"I'm going to finish sweeping the town. There has got to be some antibiotics there somewhere. We might need more bandages too," she stated, as if I hadn't even spoke.

"That's fucking stupid," I deadpanned, my eyes still locked onto hers fearlessly. I watched them widen in shock at my words. I may have cussed in front of Michonne before, a "shit" or a "dammit" here or there, but I really tried not to. Swearing in front of adults was a sign of disrespect that I tried not to show typically. My tongue had only relaxed slightly ever since the fall of the prison. I definitely had never dropped an f-bomb in front of Michonne before.

"What did you just say to me?!" she snapped furiously, stepping forward. We had been standing across the room from each other when we started talking, so she was still a good several feet away from me. It was a good thing too, because it looked like she might slap me. I don't think I had ever seen Michonne this angry, certainly not at me.

Inwardly, I recoiled at her rage, but on the outside I managed to remain composed, not stepping back even though that was my first instinct. "Look at him!" I exclaimed, pointing in Zeke's direction. "It's been _days._ He's not getting any better. He's not waking up. There's no point in going out there and risking your life again!"

"Carl, we risk our lives _every day!_ What do you suggest we do? You wanna put a bullet in his head and move on?" she asked incredulously. "Why are you so eager to give up on him? Are you that angry about him leaving?"

"No! I don't _want_ to give up on him! I'm just not going to sit here again waiting for him to get better! This is the _same_ thing that happened to Dad! I sat there, and I waited, and I waited, expecting him to wake up! Do you know what happened, Michonne?!" I yelled, and at this point I could feel the angry, distraught tears welling in my eyes. Quickly, I blinked them away. " _He just died._ " My heart sank as I said this, cracked, and shattered into a thousand pieces inside of me.

Letting the pain tear through my body until I was numb to it, I scowled at Michonne coldly. "I'm not doing that again," I stated.

Michonne's anger suddenly dissipated. She looked at me sadly for an instant, which only made my glare intensify, but then her expression morphed into one of understanding. "Okay. I get it. But giving up on him this early is wrong. You're right, he might not make it, but if we don't do everything that we can to help him, then that will definitely happen. I know that you don't want him to die. You ran out there to save him before I even did. But now he's like your dad was, and you're scared. You think it's easier to just accept that he's gone and move on," she began, and I looked away.

Slowly, she shifted towards me, taking a couple of small steps at a time. "But he's not gone. So I'm gonna do everything that I can to help him. We _both_ are. That's why I'm going out there to get what we need, and you're going to stay here and look after him," she said gently but also firmly. It clearly wasn't a question. I didn't give a response, continuing to avoid eye contact. She was right, and I knew it.

"So come here," she ordered, warmth showing in her tone now. When I glanced up, she was right in front of me, and before I could even react one of her arms pulled me in for a quick hug. I barely returned it, but I still did all the same. All arguing aside, she was still going out there, and even though it was Michonne and she could probably put Expert Walker Slayer on her resume if she wanted to, it was still dangerous.

"Don't let me catch you using that language again, punk," she whispered with fake menace in her tone, but the fondness easily covered it.

"Fine. Be safe. We'll be here when you get back," I murmured quietly, and we separated. She smiled at me and nodded, and I watched her walk away to the door. This time I didn't follow her, and I didn't watch as she disappeared into the woods either. I just knew that she would be back.

Walking back over to my spot on the floor, I sat propped up against the couch again. Then I opened my book and read.

A couple of hours probably passed, and then I had finished the novel. Setting it down on my lap, I watched it for a second, my thumb stroking across the front cover affectionately. It was a pretty good book. Giving Zeke a quick glance, I started to get up to go put the book back and maybe even find another one. Then I did a double take. My book fell to the floor, forgotten.

Because he moved.

It was probably the smallest, most insignificant movement ever, but it was the first one he had made since he had collapsed in that parking lot. His fingers were twitching. Then his eyelids began to flutter. Some sort of indescribable noise emitted from his throat, and I gasped in surprise, holding my breath. Was he waking up? Or was he dead, and had he turned already? I thought about my dad, and my gaze hardened.

Releasing the breath I had been holding, I drew my dad's revolver, keeping it at my side as I slowly walked over to Zeke's makeshift bed. Then I was standing over him. As I pointed it at his head, I pulled the hammer back with my thumb. I stared down at his face intently, watching. Waiting.

Slowly, Zeke opened his eyes.

* * *

 **The Sorrowful Deity:** **If by "they", you mean the Claimers, then yes. I won't try to hide that, they will meet up with Daryl. Rick is dead, but that doesn't affect all of the separate groups that came from the prison, not yet. I have stretched the timeline out for some events though. Like, even though Daryl would have already been with them at this point, he's not with them when Zeke encounters them. Daryl wouldn't let them try to randomly rob/murder someone after all :P. He will be with them later though...**

 **Ms. Jackson53:** **Yaaaaayyyyy, thanks!**

 **Guest:** **Glad you are enjoying it so much!**

 **IWalkOnMyOwn:** **Thank you so much! Here it is!**

 **NoisySunday:** **Let me just say, you are definitely doing your self-proclaimed duty. You are doing it very well. Gaaahhhh, I love your reviews. You didn't even need that bit at the bottom, because I greatly enjoy reading your reviews. I read every single word, more than once usually xD. Anyways, yeah. Carl is not a happy camper when it comes to anything Zeke-related right now. And this is before the guy has even woke up xD. And ahh, Terminus. Hehe. Situations like that are changed a fair bit, not going to lie. Anyways, thank you so much for another great review!**


	7. Stay

**(Zeke's POV)**

 _Click._

There was something in front of my face that made that noise, but I hadn't opened my eyes yet so I couldn't be sure what. It almost sounded like a gun.

My eyes opened.

The first thing I saw was the silver muzzle of what definitely _was_ a gun, aimed right between my eyes from the looks of it. Considering I had just woken up, I was stunned, my muscles locking up as I didn't even dare breath. The only thing that moved was my eyes, trying to rapidly assess the situation. They followed the barrel of the gun, and that was when I realized that I recognized it.

And I recognized its owner.

Carl Grimes, staring down at me with a stone-cold expression on his face. Completely unreadable. It cracked for a second when our eyes met, and I swore I saw something like relief flash across his features. Though I had just woken up, and things as insignificant as Carl's facial expressions weren't at the forefront of my mind. There were several other things that were.

 _Why is Carl pointing a gun at me?_

 _Where am I?_

 _What the fuck even happened to me?_

The last thing that I remembered was Carl saving my life. That was it. I had no idea how I got here. Hell, I didn't even know where here _was._ Getting shot would probably not answer those questions for me, so I figured I should maybe work towards that not happening.

"I surrender," I croaked weakly as I lifted my hands up, meaning for it to be sarcastic but unsure if it even came across that way with how I sounded. My throat felt like sandpaper.

Carl gave a short sigh of relief, confirming that he was at least a little bit glad he didn't have to blow my brains out. He flicked the hammer of his revolver back into its resting position with another click, and then he slipped the weapon back into the holster on his hip. He had looked away to do this, only when he looked back he was glaring. I just looked back at him neutrally, my head too fuzzy after just waking up to think about why he was angry. Carl glared a lot as it was, so it's not as if I was surprised.

After another moment, he turned away from me. My eyes followed him as he walked the few steps over to what I recognized as his backpack and reached into it. I didn't see what he pulled out, because at that point I looked away to finally check my surroundings.

We were in a house that I had never seen before. This looked like it was an upper floor, since there was a staircase leading down. We were in the living room. I noticed that the couch was missing its cushions, and that's when I realized that I was laying on them, along with some blankets.

It wasn't until then that I also realized I was shirtless. There was a white bandage wrapped around my midsection, covering where the bullet grazed my side. My foot was propped up on a glass coffee table, and there was some sort of dull pink bandage wrapped around my ankle as well. I wasn't really sure what it was, but I was assuming that it was something to help it heal.

Seeing all of this surprised me. I must have been pretty out of it if Carl and Michonne were able to save me from the parking lot, bring me to this house, and treat my injuries all without waking me up. The gravity of my situation hit me. I would have died without them. They saved me, took care of me afterwards. At the time, I had been far too sleep deprived for the fact that I was going to die to really sink in. I had known that I was going to die, but I had been too exhausted to fight it or even feel scared. Now on the other hand, I wasn't in that haze.

Something suddenly smacked me in the chest and rolled off of my torso and onto the bed underneath, and I startled as my gaze jumped to what it was. A partially-filled water bottle. I glanced up at Carl, and he was still glaring. "You've been out for a while now. Couple of days. You should probably drink something," Carl suggested, his tone sounding as if my continuing existence was the biggest annoyance to him.

Though I ignored his aggravation with me for now, nodding to him and saying, "Thanks," before moving to sit up. I was a lot less focused on his tone anyways, than I was on the fact that I was supposedly unconscious for days. My side throbbed as I just barely lifted my shoulders off of the ground. I winced, propping myself up on my elbows and exhaling a pained breath, glancing down at the bandaged area before trying again.

My teeth gritted, and I tried to ignore the pain, which was kind of like trying to ignore a hot knife carving away at my flesh, since that was what it felt like. Hands pressed to the makeshift bed I had been laying on, I started to push myself up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carl kneeling down beside me, and I knew he was going to try to help me. Giving him a glance, I muttered, "I can do it," though my strained voice indicated otherwise.

Through all of this, Carl was still scowling. It was kind of impressive actually. I thought maybe the muscles in his face would have gotten tired by now, but apparently he could just glare forever. "Shut up," he replied simply, not waiting for my consent as he placed one of his hands against my back while the other gripped my shoulder. Admittedly, he did make it easier for me to sit up, but his hands against my bare skin sent something akin to electricity rippling through my body at each point of contact.

It felt strange, and I didn't like it. I really wanted his hands off of me. Although at the same time, I did like it, and I wanted his hands to stay, to slide all over my skin until I had that electrified feeling shooting through every part of me. Though feeling this way annoyed me, so I focused on the pain again.

Carl continued to help me, his hands still pressed against me so that it wasn't so hard for me to stay sitting up as I took a drink of the water bottle he had all but thrown at me. Other than his hands eliciting that strange feeling coursing through me, they actually did feel good. They were cool against my warm skin, and I didn't realize until then that it was actually quite hot. The hand that wasn't holding the bottle came up to my forehead, the back of the appendage lightly pressing against the area underneath my bangs. I was extremely warm, sweating as well.

Maybe it was just a hot day out. It was Georgia after all. Though my body was telling me otherwise, and I was pretty sure I was just thinking wishfully. The more likely option was that I had a fever. I capped the water bottle, setting it on the floor off to my side.

About to lay back down, I stopped when I realized there was something digging into the small of my back. It wasn't really something easily noticed when I had much greater pain than just the annoyance of whatever was prodding me, but once I registered it was there, I knew what was back there. The revolver I had taken off of the man I killed must still be wedged into the waistband of my jeans.

Reaching back, I pulled out the gun nonchalantly and looked it over. Carl seemed to startle beside me, his hand leaving my back. The other one remained on my shoulder, but when I glanced over at him I saw the hand that had been helping prop me up was now resting on the gun in Carl's holster, ready to draw it and shoot me no doubt.

Slightly raising my hands once again, the gun still in one of them, I looked at him as passively as I could manage. He glared back at me with distrust, and I barely managed to keep from rolling my eyes. "Woah there, cowboy. I was just getting it out of the way. Not exactly the most comfortable thing to lay on," I explained, probably a bit more patronizing than I should have, but I wasn't worried. What was Carl going to do? Glare harder at me?

Stuffing the revolver underneath one of the couch cushions so that only the handle was visible, I looked back at Carl, holding out my empty hands for him to see. "There. Honestly, Carl, if I was gonna kill you, don't you think I would have done it by now?" I asked rhetorically. He continued to look at me contemptuously, his hand slipping off my shoulder as he stood up. Without his support, it was a bit harder to stay sitting up now, but I didn't lay back down, my arms pressed against the cushions underneath me to keep myself from falling back.

His hand remained on his gun for a minute, fingers drumming against the holster. "That doesn't mean anything. Doesn't mean you won't try. It doesn't mean I _trust_ you," he muttered, though despite his words the hand that had been resting on his gun fell away to hang at his side.

My gaze held his, and my eyes narrowed, though not quite in a glare. "If you despise me so much, then why did you help me?" I questioned.

"I don-" he began, though he appeared to rethink his words, looking away from me and shaking his head at himself briefly before those cerulean orbs were back on me, piercing into me. "I owed you. Now, I don't. We're even," he answered coolly.

For a few moments, we just looked at each other. Carl still scowling coldly, while I stared back impassively. "Fair enough," I finally responded, the other words I had to say hesitating to roll off my tongue. Eventually though, they did. "Thank you," I said sincerely, pausing before adding, "And I suppose I owe Michonne some gratitude too. Where is she?" Looking around, there was no sign of the sword-wielding woman anywhere in my view.

If it was even possible, Carl's glare intensified at the mention of Michonne, and he stiffened. If he was a cat, his hackles would probably be raised, and he would be clawing my face off if the look that was on his was anything to judge by. "She's out. Looking for medicine for _you._ So yeah, I'd say you owe her _some gratitude,_ " he practically spat with disdain.

Despite Carl's bristling, I remained relatively calm, letting his words roll off of me like water off of a duck's back. My expression was contemplative as I continued to watch him. "Is there something else you'd like to say to me, Carl?" I asked, my tone still calm yet also firm.

The younger boy's mouth opened as he stepped forward angrily. He looked like he was about to scream at me, but then he stopped. His mouth closed, and he took a step back to where he was before, even though he was nodding in response to my question. "Michonne wouldn't be out there right now if it wasn't for you," he said with hostility lacing his tone, though he didn't yell like I thought he might.

Now, I matched Carl's glare with one of my own. "Sorry that _my_ injuries are causing problems for _you._ I didn't ask Michonne to go out there for me. I didn't _ask_ for your help," I retorted.

"It doesn't matter. You would've died without it!" Carl exclaimed, his voice raising a bit now as he looked at me incredulously.

"That wouldn't have been your problem," I stated coldly.

Carl's eyes widened in disbelief. "So, you're saying we just should have left you out there?"

"I'm saying that since you didn't, you should shut your mouth and stop complaining about it. You didn't _have_ to help me. That was a choice. You can't really blame me for your choice, now, can you?"

"Shut _up!_ You're such an idiot. I did _have_ to help you, okay? I just did." Carl looked away from me for a second at that, but with his next words, he was right back to glaring at me. "It's your fault you were in that situation in the first place!"

"My fault? You don't even know what happened to me."

"Whatever it was, it wouldn't have happened if you had just stayed with me and Michonne!" Carl finally yelled, looking like he hadn't meant to afterwards.

There it was. The real reason why Carl was mad. Really, I suppose I should have known this, but for some reason it didn't occur to me until just now. It probably had to do with me no longer being used to social interaction. After so long on my own, I was kind of oblivious on how to deal with other people in a way that didn't involve killing them.

It was silent at first, Carl scowling at me while I simply stared back at him. It looked like he might throw another punch at me again, and I'm pretty sure the only thing stopping him at this point was that I was injured. Finally, I said, "So, that's what this is about. I've seen Michonne in action. I _fought_ Michonne. She's a badass, and you know it. She'll be fine. You're not angry that she's out there scavenging for me. You're angry that I left."

At first, Carl's head shook in denial as he glared at me and said, "No." Though after a few moments, his gaze fell downwards to the floor while he sighed. "Yes." His eyes snapped back up to me. "You just left! You didn't give me an explanation worth a shit! You didn't even say goodbye."

"Michonne literally watched me leave. I did say goodbye."

Carl finally stopped glaring. He looked down again, whispering something so quietly that it was almost inaudible. But I still heard it. "Not to me."

Guilt pricked at me, as the realization that I actually hurt Carl by leaving like that dawned on me. It was surprising, because Carl seemed strong. He _was_ strong. I didn't even have to know him that well to be able to see that. He didn't seem like the kind of person who would even bat an eye at me leaving, yet I was beginning to think he had done a lot more than that.

My mind circled back to the one night we were together, prior to my near death experience. Specifically, I remembered Carl's nightmare. He never told me what it was about, but I knew that it was bad. He was screaming and crying all in his sleep, not to mention the fact that he tried to kill me when he woke up. Something traumatic must have recently happened to him, something that left him vulnerable. Vulnerable enough that I guess he formed some kind of attachment to me.

Carl was strong, but there was something broken about him too.

I knew a lot about being broken.

"Carl, I-" I began, but the words died in my throat as Carl purposefully didn't look at me as he spun around and walked away, deeper into the house. Truthfully, I wasn't even sure what I would have said anyways. Maybe I would have apologized, probably explained myself too, but I was never good at that kind of thing as it was. Besides, Carl didn't exactly seem like he was in any mood to hear it.

The other boy stopped before he moved down the hallway and out of my vision, visibly sighing again. "I know, Zeke. You can't," he said to me, without turning around, and then he was gone.

For a while, I stared after him, but eventually, my gunshot wound hurt too much and I laid back down. I stared at the ceiling, thinking about what Carl said. How that's what I had told him a few weeks earlier.

"I can't... But I really want to," I said quietly, knowing he wouldn't hear it.

I was starting to think that Carl wasn't the only one getting attached.

* * *

There wasn't much conversation over the next few hours. Carl helped me get up when I wanted to take a walk around, though he did it silently. I didn't make any attempts to speak either.

It's not that I didn't want to say anything. It was more so that I didn't know what to say. Carl was angry at me, and I knew that. Yet I had no idea how to alleviate it. Sorry didn't feel like enough. I was almost positive that Carl wouldn't care about any apology I offered him anyways.

Normally, I wouldn't even be thinking about this sort of thing. Normally, I wouldn't _have_ to be thinking about this sort of thing. It had been a long time since I had been with anyone else after all. Though it looked like I would be staying with Carl and Michonne for a little while, at least as long as it took for my injuries to heal enough that I could be on my own again. Assuming they would let me stay with them that long of course. Though judging from everything they had already done for me, I wasn't expecting them to ditch me anytime soon. Not like I ditched them.

 _That was different. You were doing them a favor. Do we have to go through your track record? Have you already forgotten that you're not_ fit _to be around other people? Nothing's changed, Zeke._

Although on the inside I was wincing, I gave away nothing of my thoughts outwardly. Currently, I was standing on the edge of the upper floor of the house, my hands gripping the banister as I leaned against it. My ankle still hurt, but it was in a lot less pain than before I met up with Carl and Michonne. Though it would still probably feel better to be laying down, I felt like if I spent much more time laying around, I was going to grab the gun I stashed underneath my bed and use it to blow my brains out.

Despite the obvious pain of walking around, it felt good to do so since it had been so long. Though at first, my steps were made even more awkward than they already were, due to the whole sprained ankle thing, by the fact that whoever had taken off my right hiking boot had neglected to strip me of the left one. After I realized this, I took it off(along with the sock) and laid it next to where the other was, now enjoying the feeling of the carpet beneath my feet.

Other than relishing walking around again, I also attempted to savor a can of beans(though really I practically inhaled it) after having gone so long without eating anything. Unlike the water that Carl gave me, it was from my own supply, so I didn't have to feel like I owed him and Michonne anymore than I already did. They had already done too much for me as it was, though I guess in Carl's opinion we were already even from when I saved his life. Even though I didn't see it that way, I probably wouldn't tell him that.

Speaking of my disgruntled caretaker, he was somewhere on the lower floor. I was looking down into it right now, but I could really only see one room and part of a hallway from where I was standing on the top floor. He wasn't in my view. Honestly, I think he was using the bottom level as a way to distance himself from me. It was physically impossible for me to traverse the stairs without further injuring myself, and he knew as much.

Harsh. Although in hindsight, I suppose I hadn't exactly earned five-star Grimes' treatment. Shaking my head, I moved away from the banister. I didn't need it anyways. I was unsure of what my plans were after this, but they couldn't involve Carl, Michonne, or anyone for that matter. Could they?

For lack of a better explanation, it just seemed like sort of a dick move to just stay with them until I had healed up, and then hit the road, though that was exactly what my mind was telling me to do. But there was something else pulling me in another direction. The difference was clear as day. My mind was telling me, _ordering_ me, to do the logical thing, where this other force was pulling me, beckoning me, to do what I _wanted_ to do. I suppose one could call this other thing I had differentiated from my mind, my heart.

If one wanted to be sappy as shit, that is.

Besides, if things were getting all metaphorical, I honestly wasn't sure I even _had_ a heart anymore. What I would call this thing that I was trying to explain was a simple yearning for human contact after being secluded for so long. Like some prisoner, thrown in solitary confinement. On death row, awaiting my execution.

Everyone was on death row now.

Only I put myself in that hole, alone. I was my own jailer. In all honesty, I didn't want it. I didn't know how to act around other people anymore. It _was_ safer on my own, because other people couldn't be trusted. Although none of that was really why I was alone. I was alone because it was what I _deserved._

All self-depreciation aside, I guess my decision was irrelevant at the moment. Though I kept the thought in the back of my mind to consider later, because I would have to make a choice, sooner or later. Right now, I was saving it for later. In my current state, I wouldn't get very far on my own.

Speaking of my current state, the fever may have been getting worse. Stumbling back away from the banister, I actually felt like I might fall over without the support. I quickly moved over to the couch, sitting on one arm of the piece of furniture and holding onto the back of it with one hand. Really, I should lay down, but I still abhorred the idea at the moment. Bringing my free hand up to my forehead, I wiped away more sweat with the back of it and grimaced at the way my hand glistened with it now.

Maybe I wouldn't have to make a decision at all. Maybe the infection from the gunshot wound would kill me, and that would be it. Glancing down at my side, I saw that now I had also bled through the bandage, a spot of crimson seeping through. The very real possibility that either Michonne wouldn't come back, or that she would come back empty-handed, was stuck in my head now. If I didn't get antibiotics, I was pretty sure I would die. It certainly felt like that, and the pain in my side had only worsened since earlier.

 _From a scratch on your side? Don't be such a pussy, Zeke. You said it yourself, Michonne is a badass. If you just give her some damn time she'll come back with the stuff. Or you know, you'll die a painful death. Then again, it would really be your own fault anyways for getting shot._

Slowly nodding in a resigned way, I chuckled. "Thanks, Zeke. Can always count on you to reassure me," I muttered to myself under my breath. I chuckled again, even though it physically hurt to do so. The fever was probably starting to burn the last of my sanity out of my mind, because I rarely laughed, even short laughs like that.

Though I trusted my mental stability enough to not just sit there and wonder if the sound I heard was real when the door opened. My eyes immediately snapped to the noise, but whoever was entering would have to go through the foyer first, and then the kitchen. They had only just come in, so they must still be in the foyer.

There wasn't much left in me that was optimistic, so as much as I hoped it was Michonne, I didn't sit around and wait for her to round the corner only for it to be some psycho with a machine gun. The image of one of the men who shot me(I had no idea which one it was after all) walking into the house and gunning me down, and then doing the same to Carl, flashed across my mind. I practically leaped off of the couch.

As much of a leap as I could manage anyways, managing to land with a bit of finesse to where it didn't sound like someone had just dropped one-hundred and some pounds of teenager to the floor. Then I rapidly crawled the rest of the way to the bed made out of couch cushions that was in the middle of the living room. Reaching down to where I put the revolver, I drew it and didn't hesitate to cock the hammer back as I aimed it into the kitchen from where I was kneeling on the blankets and cushions of my makeshift bed.

What I saw caused me to breathe a sigh of relief. Michonne, standing in the middle of the adjoining room staring at me with a surprised expression. I lowered my gun, my thumb pressing the hammer back into the resting position again. Tiredly, I leaned over and wedged the revolver back where I had it before. As I did this, Michonne spoke. I could tell she was walking into the living room because of this, and this only, because her steps were still silent.

"You're awake," she stated placidly, keeping the emotion that I had seen on her face out of her voice.

Glancing up at her, I nodded. My eyes had unwillingly slipped into a half-lidded state. "Yeah," I breathed, my voice sounding like I had just run a marathon instead of moved about six feet across a room.

Michonne stopped, taking more time to actually look at me now. She leaned down slightly, her hand coming up to my forehead without my consent. Normally, I would have reared away from it, but I was too exhausted for that now. If anything I almost leaned into the contact because of how cool her hand was against my skin. "Woah, you don't look so good, kid. And you're burning up pretty badly," she said, pulling her hand away and walking past me.

"Gee, thanks. It's a good thing I have high self-esteem," I replied sarcastically. Despite somewhat despising the idea of laying down, I started to shift into that position due to my deteriorating condition. I heard, and then saw, Michonne shifting around, standing her backpack up on the couch after she took it off. She was digging in it now for something. Hopefully medicine. She cocked an eyebrow at me for my comment, looking like she couldn't decide whether to roll her eyes or laugh, though she chose neither, returning to her search.

As she was pulling something out, she abruptly stopped and looked around. "Where's Carl?" she asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice, but I still knew it was there. Opening my mouth to reply, I didn't get the chance. Nearly on cue, the younger boy's footsteps could be heard slapping against the stairs as he seemingly bolted up them, from what I could hear at least. Then he emerged from the staircase.

"Michonne!" he exclaimed, his tone bursting with excitement. A broad smile stretched across his face, and he was actually running for her like he meant to give her a hug. Though he stopped, the smile dying as he regarded me with a cold glance and apparently decided against it. Since I, of course, was not allowed to see Carl express such affection. Instead, he just looked at her with a straight-face, all business once again. "You get the stuff?"

Holding up an orange pill bottle with a slight musical shake of it, Michonne nodded to him triumphantly. I sighed in relief, reminding me how much I needed the said "stuff" because even doing that much hurt. "Yes, I did." She popped it open, pouring some out into her hand. She placed whatever was unneeded back in the bottle and then sealed it again.

Turning to me, she walked over and crouched down beside the makeshift bed. She held out her hand, two white pills laying in her palm. Despite basically knowing what they were, I gave the tablets a slightly distrusting look before my gaze darted up to Michonne's face. She just looked back at me expectantly for a moment, before giving a short sigh. "Antibiotics. You think I went through all that work just to poison you?" she asked, probably rhetorically, though her voice sounded surprisingly patient. Like she understood the root of my hesitation. I suppose most people would nowadays, but it was almost different. She almost seemed to understand _more._

Nodding in thanks, I took the pills from her hand and sat up slightly with a grunt, expecting the pain that shot through my body with this action. I snatched up the bottle of water that was still beside the bed, murmuring a quick, "I really hope not," before swallowing the medication quickly. Then I laid back down again, and despite my nod of thanks, I wanted to verbalize it too. With Carl's reaction earlier, he might have just torn my head off if I didn't. "Thank you."

Michonne returned my nod. She held out the pill bottle for me, and even if this didn't make any sense, it felt almost like some kind of peace offering. Along with the remark she gave with it. "Take the same dose I gave you, twice a day. You know, just in case you can't read." Her tone was a bit dry, though I caught a near imperceptible twitch of her lips. I returned the same almost smirk as I took the transparent, orange-tinted bottle, briefly glancing over the label that was faded, yet still readable.

With no motivation to move at the moment, I simply stood the pill bottle up next to the water. I had expected Michonne to have moved by the time I looked back, only she hadn't. Instead, she was staring at the blot of crimson on my bandage that was slowly growing. It was bigger than the last time I looked at it at least. She was clearly troubled by this, and she seemed to be considering something, which made me a bit nervous.

"Zeke," she began, though she was clearly hesitant to continue. It also didn't help my nerves at all that she hadn't looked away from my bandage.

"Michonne..." I countered worriedly, staring at her.

Her gaze finally moved to meet mine. "You've bled through quite a few bandages... That bullet a bit more than grazed you, and the bleeding's not stopping on its own," she continued, though obviously she wasn't finished yet, despite her pause.

Glaring impatiently now, I voiced this impatience with, "Okay. Well, spit it out. You gonna shoot me or something?"

She matched my glare, though hers wasn't an impatient one, more so one of annoyance. Then she seemed to realize something, and the glare was suddenly gone, replaced by that even-tempered expression she wore so well. "No, it's not going to be quite that pleasant." I think my expression was probably quite horrified for a second as I opened my mouth to say something, maybe ask how brutally she was planning on killing me, but she didn't give me a chance as her next words came.

"It's nothing like that! Jesus, kid. Have some faith. I guess I did word that a bit questionably, huh? Look, what I mean is, I'm going to have to stitch you shut. Now, your little brush with death there," a finger pointed down at where the bandage covered my wound, "wasn't looking so good, and that was _before_ , I left. Judging from the looks of you, I'd say it hasn't gotten any better. You're probably in a lot of pain, aren't you?" she asked.

I nodded in confirmation, because yes, I had seen better days.

"Well, I found the antibiotics, so that will get better. Unfortunately, it does nothing for you now, and we can't wait until the infection is gone to stitch you up. I didn't find any painkillers..." she trailed off, but she didn't need to finish. I knew what she was trying to say.

This was going to hurt. Badly. I swallowed at the thought, but there was no time for me to be weak. I didn't survive this long like that. Nodding determinedly, I calmly said, "Do it."

"You sure?" Michonne asked, almost in surprise at my willingness.

Carl's gaze was on me, and I could feel it. Glancing up at him, I met his eyes with a hard stare which he returned. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking, though I think I at least wore the same undecipherable expression. After another moment of our eye contact, I looked back at Michonne, who obviously saw that but was acting as if she hadn't, waiting for my affirmation. "It's either this, or slowly bleed to death, right?" I asked rhetorically, continuing after only a few seconds for a pause. "Well, I didn't come all this way just to die. Do it."

Michonne nodded somewhat gravely, standing up and shifting the few steps to the table that my sprained ankle was rested on. I hadn't taken notice of it before, but there was already a needle and thread on the glass tabletop. She had been planning this for a while probably. She started to slip the thread through the eye of the needle. "Carl, get on the other side of him. We'll need to take that bandage off before we start. And you might need to hold him down once the stitching begins," she ordered, which to my surprise, Carl followed.

He was on my other side now, kneeling next to me. When my eyes moved over to him, he only kept up the hard stare for a second before relenting and actually nodding in support. It was good to know he didn't _completely_ hate me.

Michonne materialized on my other side a second later, and she set the thread and needle aside while the two worked together to quickly strip me of my bandage, which in itself was an unpleasant experience. I was imagining this was going to be much worse. My hands laid at my sides, and I waited, my gaze locked onto the ceiling. I really didn't want to watch as this happened.

"You ready?" she asked, though I didn't know why she bothered. She was already pouring peroxide over the wound, which actually didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would(given it still burned like the fires of Hell). Maybe this wouldn't hurt as badly as I thought.

"Don't ask me if I'm ready. Just- _AGH FUCK!_ " It was a lot worse than I thought. The needle pierced through my hypersensitive skin without warning(although I still maintained the thought that it was probably better that I didn't have a warning). A needle stabbing through the skin around my wound was about as enjoyable as one might imagine, and that agony was only amplified by the infection, which made the area around my gash tender to even just someone's touch, much less a sharp object.

My hands balled the blanket underneath me into my fists, and I just gritted my teeth and tried not to scream. Tried and failed, though I did manage to suppress the noises some. My head whipped back and pressed against the cushion underneath it furiously, and I also attempted not to arch my back, which thankfully, I succeeded in that particular endeavor. The needle weaved in and out of my skin at a torturous pace, though I suppose Michonne had to get it right. That and it probably was going a lot faster than I realized.

My vision was going blurry from the pain, though I wasn't passing out like I thought I might. At this point, I was wishing for it. "You're doing real good, Zeke. Just keep still, it won't be long now," Michonne said from my side as she continued to stab me. As terrible as I made that sound, it was actually better that she didn't stop to say it. I wasn't sure that I could handle keeping still much longer if this torment was prolonged. I think I actually tried to give some sort of response, but it really just came out as a guttural growl.

Seconds dragged on and felt more like hours, but I know that at some point I felt Carl's hands on me, my arm. Though he wasn't holding me down, because I was just barely managing to restrain myself, albeit I still was. No, he was just there, letting me know that he was with the contact, since I was still focused on the ceiling. When my eyes were even open. Eventually, his hands slipped down, and they cupped around the fist that was on his side of me.

At some point, my fist opened and took one of his hands, while both of his closed around mine. He applied a bit of pressure, letting me know that I could squeeze I think, although I wasn't much for waiting for his permission anyways. The pain was all I could really think about. So I did squeeze his hand. So hard, that I probably would have thought it might break, if I could even have thought about that with the agony coursing throughout me. Through all of it, he never complained, and he never let go. He never even tried.

Even after, when Michonne had finally finished stitching the gash shut, and I had finally stopped screaming. My eyes were closed, my breathing strained and shallow as I tried to calm myself down enough to sleep after the trauma my body just went through. There were no words after it was finished. I was too worn out for that, and they both knew it. Mostly, I just felt the pain in my side as I attempted to drift off, eventually managing it. Though I felt him there too. Carl. His warmth radiated throughout my hand and arm, and it was a different kind of warmth, a sensation that I hadn't felt in a long time. Maybe even never before. The entire time, he was at my side, holding my hand.

And he never let go.

* * *

Waking up later was a process. It took me a while to come out of the haze of sleep, and for a while I barely opened my eyes. I didn't even want to, considering the first thing I felt was my burning side. The next thing I felt was the lack of Carl's hands clasped around my own, which made me feel ridiculous for even missing it, but I did, for a fleeting moment. Maybe even longer, if I was being honest with myself, though I soon pushed the feeling away.

My eyes opened once, only to shut again after a second as I stubbornly tried to force myself back into sleep. Only it didn't work, and after a few moments of laying there, they opened again to look around dazedly. It was dark now, very dark actually. I couldn't see anything around me, other than something off to my right. When I glanced over to find the source of the light, I realized it was coming from the kitchen.

It wasn't a lot of light. More of a faint orange glow. What I recognized as candlelight after a few moments of thinking about it. There was sound coming from the kitchen as well. The familiar voices were recognized faster than the candlelight, Carl and Michonne of course. They sounded like they were eating. Their voices were low, soothing. Probably to avoid waking me. For a while I just laid there, my eyes closing again as I listened.

It wasn't really eavesdropping, considering I couldn't really make out their words. I wasn't even trying to. It was just the sound of their quiet murmuring that I was listening to. It was calming. Though unfortunately, not calming enough to put me back to sleep. Even though I knew I would be up for a little while, I didn't actually want to get _up,_ so I didn't. I laid, silent and still, as if I was sleeping. Eventually the talking simmered to a close, and I realized that they were probably getting ready to go to bed themselves.

"Okay. There won't be much to do for him tonight, just make sure he takes his pills and then he'll probably fall back asleep. Night, Carl," Michonne murmured quietly, her voice now occupying the space that joined the kitchen and the living room, which was why I had heard her now. Then she walked past me, probably to go to whichever bedroom she had claimed as her own. I still hadn't opened my eyes yet, and I only knew that she had walked past me as I felt a slight breeze as she nearly passed over me. My eyes opened to confirm what I thought had happened, and once I had, I looked back towards the kitchen.

I wasn't sure exactly what Carl and Michonne had been talking about, but it wasn't that hard to figure out. The main thing that I gathered from the snippet of conversation that I caught was that Carl was going to be coming out here to wake me up, probably so that I could take my second dose of antibiotics for the day, I'm sure. I began to realize that I was actually a bit nervous for this, and that I should probably take the opportunity to talk to Carl alone.

Trying to plan out my words in my head, I barely had time to register that the source of light was moving until Carl was standing approximately where Michonne had been a moment ago, staring at me in surprise, holding a dish with the lit candle in it. He blinked a few times, before recovering and saying, "Oh. You're up. Michonne wanted me to get you- Wait... did you hear us?"

My head shook quickly at first to put the other boy at ease, but then it stopped and I gave a few nods afterwards. Carl looked at me in confusion, and he probably thought that I was delirious or something. "Well, I didn't hear you, not really. I just heard Michonne tell you to wake me up and stuff. I've only been up for a little bit," I half-lied, not really feeling bad since I wasn't exactly wide awake before anyways.

Carl gave a nod in understanding. Our eyes locked for a few moments, and we just stared at each other. Eventually, he cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "Well... you heard Michonne I guess. Just uh, take a couple more of your pills, and you can go back to sleep after that." He started to walk away after that, but he stopped a few steps after he passed my place on the floor. Turning back towards me, his eyes cast downwards at the candle and his thumbs rubbed at the dish in sort of a nervous, fiddling way. "Um, how are you feeling by the way?" He glanced back up at me, but his eyes averted almost immediately, like he wasn't even sure about the question he was asking.

"Uh, better than before, but you know. That's not saying much," I admitted, glancing down at my newly stitched wound for the first time. Though I could barely see it in the limited light. "Hey, could you bring the candle closer?" I asked, to which Carl nodded and moved over to my side. He sat cross-legged on the ground and set the dish with the candle in it in front of him, in between us.

My torso was suddenly illuminated, and now I could really lay eyes on the freshly treated wound. Michonne's stitches looked like they could probably use some work, and they were a bit crooked. They got the job done anyways, and I wasn't really complaining. Though I briefly wondered if the woman's amateur medical skills made that whole ordeal more painful than it had to be. Shrugging it off, I was grateful either way, regardless of the pain(although I would have preferred to skip that part).

"Wow, that is gonna leave a gnarly looking scar," Carl commented, sounding almost impressed. When I looked over, I saw his gaze locked on the area, and it made my face heat up slightly. Scoffing at his word choice, I shook my head in amusement.

"Gnarly? What are you, a surfer?" I asked incredulously, although it wasn't like my typical wry sense of humor, and I actually smirked at Carl a bit, which he returned with one of his own.

"Shut up! I was tryna think of a better word than _ugly_ so that you wouldn't feel so bad. Last time I try to spare your feelings," Carl grumbled, though I could tell he was fighting a full blown smile now. It almost made me smile. Though after another moment we stopped fighting smiles, and he seemed to look at me like he couldn't remember why he was even wanting to smile in the first place. He was probably remembering that I was a dick.

We looked at each other for a few more seconds, and then Carl began to shift like he was going to get up. "I should probably be getting to bed. You should too. Don't forget your pills," he stated, his voice blank.

"Carl, wait," I blurted out, before I could even formulate an appropriate set of words to follow that up. Though he did wait, freezing in place. He was still sitting, but now his knees were bent in front of him, his feet and one of his palms pressed against the ground as he prepared to get up. He was staring at me, though this was the hard stare again, from before. Almost glaring, but not quite. Instead, those electrifying blue eyes of his were piercing into me, waiting and waiting for me to speak. I felt like he could summon lightning bolts on demand with the way he was shocking me, cooking me alive right in front of him.

After another moment of me fumbling for words, I finally spoke. "Thank you. For earlier."

Carl's gaze fell to the floor, and his head shook as he responded dismissively with, "That was nothing. I was just trying to keep you from moving around and impaling yourself on the needle. That would've just caused more problems."

"No, you weren't. You weren't holding me down. You were just... There. And you didn't have to be. So, I'm thanking you," I countered stubbornly, trying to meet his gaze although he was purposefully avoiding the eye contact. I sat up now, ignoring the pain that shot through my body at the motion, but I still couldn't quite stifle the hiss that escaped from between my clenched teeth.

With that noise, he did look at me, worry unmistakably flashing in his eyes for a moment, though maybe I imagined it because it was gone as quick as it was there. He was full on glaring now, and I looked back at him with furrowed eyebrows. I glanced away to take my second dose of the antibiotics, before I forgot, and that was when he spoke, as the pills washed down my throat with a drink from the water bottle.

"Why are you acting like this? You feel bad now or something because the roles are reversed, and I'm the one who saved _your_ life?" I looked back at him now, and he seemed to falter for a moment, but he continued nevertheless, with a vengeance it seemed. He pointed an accusing finger at me as he spat, "You were nothing but an _asshole_ to me when we met. Now you're finally trying to treat me like a person because I saved you? That's _fucked!_ " His voice had raised a bit, and he looked over his shoulder for a moment, probably to see if Michonne had heard and was coming to investigate. When she didn't, he turned back to me. "So I don't care if I've proved myself _worthy_ of your attention now, Zeke, because I don't want it anymore," he deadpanned, pushing himself to his feet now.

His words stung, but I knew that he had every reason to feel that way. "Carl, _I'm sorry,_ " I began sincerely, before he could walk away, because I was. "It was never about proving yourself to me. It was never about you at _all._ It was about me." I had started out calm. Somewhat pleading and definitely sincere, but calm above all else. Now that was starting to dissipate, whisked away by my anger. "You don't _understand!_ I _can't_ be with a group! I _can't_ have friends! I _can't_ care!" I was almost yelling now, struggling to keep my voice in check. Struggling to keep myself in check, before everything spilled out of me.

Carl visibly recoiled at this, his eyes widening in surprise at my outburst. He didn't turn away though, not like I thought he would. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why _can't_ you? Why _did_ you leave, without even bothering to say goodbye to me? Hell, the only reason you said goodbye at all is because Michonne was on watch, otherwise you just would've slipped out, right? You say I don't understand. _Make_ me understand. Explain it to me! You don't think I've lost things?! I shot both my mom and dad in the _head_ , and my baby sister was _ripped apart_ by walkers! You aren't the only one you self-centered _asshole!_ " His voice was raising to the volume of mine now. He was edging closer to me as well, subconsciously I think, though it was getting to the point where I was thinking he might punch me.

It was my turn to recoil, and I was honestly shocked by his words, not expecting him to come forward with something like that. I suppose I did push him though.

The tension was broke by the most unsuspecting of things. Carl's foot nudged the dish with the candle when he took another step closer, and suddenly it tipped over. Of course, we didn't see this, only heard it. I was the first one to look down, and then him. Because the candle had been so close to my makeshift bed, one of the blankets quickly caught fire.

"Shit!"

"Fuck!"

We both scrambled to put it out. After a stressful few moments, I pointed to my tattered green coat, which had been thrown somewhere else in the living room at some point in time. It already had a tear in it from the bullet, so if it got any burn marks from putting out a fire, I think I could live with it. Carl hurriedly grabbed it and threw it to me, and I moved in the same frantic manner as I beat the fabric against the flame that had sprouted up, gunshot wound be damned. Thankfully, it wasn't hard to put out. We were also in complete darkness now, but that was still better than burning to death.

Carl put the no longer flaming candle back in the dish, and then set it off to the side somewhere, resignedly slumping down against the couch, facing me. He wasn't looking at me now though, playing with his hands and staring at where they were in his lap, devoid of emotion. I looked away from him too now, laying down again. My side hurt after all of the movement.

"What the _hell_ is going on out here?" asked a very cranky sounding Michonne from the darkness of the hallway. Just when I thought that maybe miracles did exist, and she just wasn't going to wake up after all of that... excitement. Both Carl and I immediately looked at her, probably both looking like deer in the headlights of the monster truck that Michonne was likely going to plow us both over with. She was barely visible, only her dark silhouette able to be seen where the hallway opened up into the living room.

"Uh..."

"Um..."

She sighed, shaking her head. I waited for her to explode at us about the fire, although when she spoke again I was surprised. "You two can't keep fighting like this if we're going to all be together. I spent hours trudging around out there, surrounded by walkers, today. I'm exhausted. I don't need to be woken up by your teen drama. Go to sleep, or work out your problems at an inside volume. Or ya know, just do it _tomorrow,_ " she calmly, but firmly stated. She didn't wait for any sort of reply, turning around after. Carl and I glanced through the darkness at each other, and just when we thought that maybe we had gotten away with the _other_ incident, we heard Michonne's voice from the hallway.

"Also, _fire_ is not an acceptable solution, so if I smell another one out here, I don't care how it starts, or who starts it, I'm putting you _both_ to sleep. _With force_ ," she threatened, though I was almost positive she sounded just the slightest bit amused.

"It was an accident!" we called after her in unison.

"The candle-"

"-and then the blanket started-"

"-but we put it out!"

At this point we were talking over each other, so that most of our words were muddled and unable to be comprehended, though Michonne didn't care about that anyways. " _Goodnight,_ boys," she said, though it was almost more of an order. No, scratch that. Definitely an order. Then we heard her door shut, and we were back to looking at each other.

First, we sighed. Once again, this was almost perfectly in synchronization, unintentionally. We couldn't see each other's glare, but I think we both knew that we were glaring. Then the expression disappeared off of my face at least.

Someone laughed.

Soon, we were both laughing, quietly of course, because we didn't want to invoke Michonne's wrath. She most likely wouldn't be so merciful if we disturbed her twice in the same night.

Eventually, it died down, but it felt nice while it lasted. I hadn't truly laughed in a long time. We were silent for what felt like a while, but after what was probably really only a few minutes, I broke it. "Carl... It really sucks about your family. I know how that feels. I, uh- I'm sorry for being an ass. I didn't say goodbye to you when I left because I knew if I tried, I never would have left in the first place."

Carl didn't say anything for what felt like a long time, but was still probably only another span of a few minutes. "You're probably right. And it's oka- I mean, I understand. I think mistakes were made on both sides."

"Shall we call a truce, General Grimes?" I asked, taking on a fake proper tone for his amusement.

He laughed again, a sound that I was beginning to realize I enjoyed quite a bit, and I think I might have actually smiled to myself for a second.

"Yeah, I think I'd like that," he responded, and I swore I could hear a bit of warmth in his tone.

"I'm glad. We should probably try to get some sleep. I have a feeling Michonne's not going to let us off so easily for all of that, come tomorrow."

Carl's head was barely visible(it was mostly his sheriff's hat), but I was just able to see it nod. I heard the shuffling and then saw him a bit more clearly as he was standing up now. "Yeah... You can expect what might just be an endless amount of teasing," he confirmed a bit grimly. I groaned in response, making sure my ankle was propped up on the glass coffee table again before I sank back into the cushions, my eyes closing.

The other boy started to walk away, but I heard him stop before he had fully left the room. "Zeke?" he called quietly. My eyes remained shut, as I was already pretty tired

"Yeah, Carl," I still managed to murmur drowsily.

"You said all that stuff... about not being able to be here. Was that your way of telling me that you're leaving again once you heal up?" he asked carefully.

My eyes did open now, and I sat up slightly as I focused my gaze on him. After a moment or two, I asked a question of my own. "Do you want me to stay?"

He seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he opted for an answer, which not to be conceited, that I just knew wasn't true. "I don't care what you do. It would be stupid for you to be with us if you didn't want to be." It almost appeared like he was just going to leave it at that, walking away further, but his steps were dragging. I wasn't all that surprised when he made another stop. "But I think Michonne has a soft spot for you. All of that searching for the medicine and what not. And you might not make it on your own out there... Could sprain your ankle again or something. And, uh..." he trailed off, and I thought maybe he was actually done this time. Though I was wrong again.

I almost didn't hear him, and when I did, I almost thought I imagined it. But I knew, deep down, from the twisting, flipping feeling in my stomach and the warmth spreading throughout my chest, that he did really say it. "And I do want you to stay."

At first I nodded, but then I remembered that it was dark, and his back was turned, so he couldn't see it. So after a few moments, I quietly told him my decision, the one that I had just now made. Maybe it was spontaneous, and maybe it was stupid, but I didn't care. I had told him, told _myself_ that I couldn't, but maybe I just needed to try.

"Then I'll stay."

* * *

 **thewalkerinme:** **Yay, you left a review! :D Haha, I honestly loved writing Michonne torturing Carl last chapter, and yeah. I kind of wrote her physically torturing Zeke this chapter... xD But yes, he is on the mend now. Unless... something else happens... MWHAHAHAHAHA!**

 **The Sorrowful Deity:** **I loved this review so much xD.**

 **IWalkOnMyOwn:** **Thanks! I was hoping that people would find it kind of funny haha. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Not quite as much humor, but there is some romance! Sort of. If you squint and tilt your head xD.**

 **Also, it has been declared that the official ship name is Zarl. Not by me, but by my friend** **thewalkerinme** **. If anyone has any objections, speak now, or forever hold your peace. I like it. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Next chapter should be up next week! Thanks for reading, everybody!**


	8. Do Something

**Okay, so I'm an asshole. I am so so soooo sorry for just kind of disappearing for almost four weeks without any kind of notice, not really cool on my part, I know. There has been some heavy shit going on in my life recently, making it kind of hard for me to keep up on this, but I'm not using that as an excuse. Just wanted you all to know that I didn't randomly abandon. I'm going to try to get back on a schedule, but just know that if I miss a week or something, I'm still here. Also, school is going to be starting soon for me x_x. So, once that happens I think my uploading will definitely slow down some, but I'm going to try and not worry about that for now. Anyways, enough of my sermon, on to the chapter. It's a long one, I suppose as kind of an apology for making you all wait. There also may or may not be some fluff involved, but you'll have to do your own investigating to figure that out ;P.**

* * *

 **(Zeke's POV)**

It had been a little over a week now since Michonne stitched the gash in my side shut.

It felt like years. Between the gunshot wound and my sprained ankle, I couldn't really do much, strictly enforced by Carl and Michonne. Every time I needed to move, I was helped up, and about the only thing that I didn't get assisted with or yelled at for was when I would _breathe._ Even then, I thought the only reason for that was probably just that they hadn't found out how.

Okay, so maybe that description was a bit dramatic, but my moments of immobility still had dragged on at a torturous pace. Thankfully though, I had recently been allowed a bit more freedom due to my fever disappearing and my ankle pretty much healing up. It wasn't one-hundred percent yet, and I still had to be careful. Walking was okay again at least, and it was actually part of the healing process for me to start exercising the damaged extremity, according to Michonne.

Unfortunately, exercising it consisted of moving around the house, and occasionally a short walk outside. Although never alone. Either Carl or Michonne always insisted on coming with me, despite my protests that it was my ankle that was impaired, not my brain, and that I still knew how to kill rotters.

Basically, I had spent the last week or so hobbling around like some invalid, escorted everywhere I went by Carl or Michonne. I had done nothing useful. My time consisted of eating, sleeping, reading, and a few conversations with one or both of my companions here and there. The most memorable of which being when they asked about what happened to me, and where I had gotten the guns. The answer to both questions was the same.

"I killed someone," I had began simply, which admittedly probably wasn't the best thing to lead with, but as aforementioned, I wasn't exactly acclimated to social situations anymore. Though I had ignored any mildly shocked faces or judging expressions given out of them jumping to conclusions, and continued with the actual explanation of what happened. The man and his murderous gang, how I had gotten hurt, and how the herd of rotters outside the town where I had met up with Carl and Michonne had ironically saved my life

They had seemed surprised, maybe even impressed in a way. Probably that I had survived, which I couldn't blame them for, because I was honestly a bit surprised that I hadn't been ripped apart, either by the teeth of the rotters or the bullets of the band of killers. Though I was hardly impressed, because it was really just dumb luck that I wasn't dead. Now I was here, using up supplies that I couldn't even collect for myself anymore.

While I had been laying around uselessly, Carl and Michonne had done a lot more than just take care of me. They had been scavenging, having gone out on several runs(mostly for food and medical supplies) which I had not been able to participate in, of course. The memory of when they went on their first run came to mind.

Right before they left, Carl had come back inside, probably with the excuse that he forgot something. I remembered looking at him expectantly when he came over to me, asking why they hadn't left yet. He hesitated for a few seconds, but then he spoke.

"You're gonna be here when we get back, right?" he had asked, purposefully not looking at me.

At that point, I still hadn't even gotten over my fever entirely, despite it having gone down. My side still hurt pretty badly, and I barely even could walk to take a piss without being tired. So understandably, I had probably gave Carl the most incredulous look as I grunted, "I look like I'm going anywhere?" in disbelief.

A flicker of eye contact, but he broke it quick. "Don't answer my question with a question. Hate when you do that," he had muttered, still standing near me and shifting slightly from side to side as he had presumably been waiting for an answer.

Trying not to, but most definitely failing, I had sighed tiredly before saying, "Yes, Carl. I'll be here when you get back," also unable to keep the patronization out of my tone.

At that, he had glared, now looking directly at me. That was always one sure way to get Carl to look at me I suppose, just get him annoyed enough to shoot me a scowl. "Promise," he had ordered, and that's what it was. Not a question, he had demanded that I promised him that I wouldn't leave.

"Carl-"

" _Promise,_ " he had insisted vehemently. "Promise that you won't leave again." I realized that he wasn't just talking about right then and there.

Sighing again, I had fixed him with a look, with which he had responded by continuing to glare. "It's stupid to make promises in this world. You can't keep them," I had replied truthfully.

"That's bullshit. This world makes it even more important to keep your promises. If you care-" he had started, but then suddenly stopped himself. He glanced downwards and sighed. "Never mind, it was stupid of me to bring it up."

Right when he had turned to leave, my hand darted out and wrapped around his wrist, almost without my permission. He had looked back at me over his shoulder, waiting. "Okay. I promise," I had said, truly hoping that I meant it. That I could keep it.

Glancing away from me at that, I still hadn't missed that small smile that danced across his lips for a moment or two. My hand released him, and he turned back towards me fully. "Cool," he had said, feigning nonchalance when I could tell he was suppressing that smile. His hand extended out to me, and in the same second he had explained, "Shake on it."

My head had cocked to the side as I looked at him incredulously. He had responded by jiggling the hand in front of me with persistence, his facial expression trying to be serious, but there had also been amusement lighting up those electric blue orbs of his. Rolling my eyes, I took his hand and we shook.

"Now, you can't break it," Carl had stated cockily.

Narrowing my eyes at him in interest, I had challenged, "Oh? And what happens if I do?"

"You die a terrible death," he had shot back.

"Really? What, the mystical power of the handshake kills me?" I had asked in amusement, smirking.

"No. I track you down and put my knife in your dick hole," he had answered seriously, though at this, he was biting his lip to repress his laughter.

"That's dark. And disturbingly detailed. Why does it have to be my _dick_?!" I had questioned, cringing and almost covering my crotch at the thought.

After that, he had been unable to contain the laughter anymore and it burst out of him. I had smirked watching it. Once he had contained it again, we both seemed to simultaneously realize that even though we had finished shaking hands a few moments ago, our two appendages were still clasped together.

Both of us averting eye contact, we had awkwardly pulled away. We each had said our goodbyes, and then Carl went to join Michonne again for the run.

Things had been interesting like that with Carl, ever since I had told him I would stay. Sometimes it was good. We would talk, joke around like that, and we almost seemed like friends. Though I could tell he hadn't completely gotten over the whole me abandoning him thing. There were other times, where we would end up fighting, or Carl would ignore me like I was the dirt underneath his shoe. He would glare something so fierce that it was almost enough to make me think that he hated me.

The mixed signals were enough to make my head hurt if I thought about it for too long. As for the almost magnetic pull that I felt between us whenever we got too close, I tried not to think about it altogether.

 _It's physical attraction. Don't confuse it with anything else,_ my logical mind told me, and I listened.

Besides, I still barely knew him, and Michonne for that matter. It's not like I blamed them. They knew even less about me than I knew about them. Other than what Carl had told me about himself, I had also learned that him and Michonne came from the same camp, and that's how they knew each other. They mentioned a prison a few times, along with several different people's names. They never directly talked about it with me, probably because I didn't ask(though I had a feeling they might evade the questions even if I did), but what I had pieced together was that this prison they kept mentioning was where they lived before. The names I had heard were people who had lived there with them; I assumed their friends.

It made me wonder what happened to put them out here like this. Though I didn't ask about that either, and they never seemed to talk about it. At least, not around me. Which, once again, I couldn't really blame them for, since I didn't exactly walk around divulging details from my past either. Usually it was best to leave the past where it was. The only thing that mattered was the present.

Presently, it was dark outside, though not too dark. The moon was providing pretty good light outside tonight, and even inside, at least where there were windows. Regardless of the light level, it was late. Sometime in the middle of the night. I couldn't sleep, just like I hadn't really been able to sleep well the last few nights.

I was pacing.

It started in the middle of the week. At least, that's when I became aware of it. The restlessness building inside of me. It first manifested itself in being unable to sit still for very long. Then I slowly grew more irritable, which only served to escalate my on and off conflict with Carl. It took me a while to understand what it was, or maybe rather to accept it. Deep down, I think I knew almost immediately why I was so agitated.

The last time that I had killed a rotter was nearly two weeks ago. I was unconscious for some of that time, but only a couple of days. Now, this may not seem like it was much of a reason to be disconcerted; if anything, most people would be happy about not having to dispatch any of the undead for so long. I was not most people.

My pacing started in the living room, but eventually, I moved out into the kitchen. My ankle started to hurt after a while, but I ignored it. I was brimming with the whirring energy, the restlessness, the _need._ Managing to halt my steps for a moment, I stood looking out of a window above the kitchen counter, my fingers drumming rapidly against the granite surface. They itched to swing a hatchet or drive a knife into a rotter's skull.

The dreams were the worst. They had only started a few nights ago, but even one night of those dreams felt like an eternity. They weren't nightmares, and that was why it was so bad. I had woken up in a cold sweat every night since they had began plaguing my mind, terrified. Only it wasn't the dreams I was scared of. I had looked down at my hands, scared of them. Of what they would do, of what they already _had_ done.

I was scared of myself.

In the recent string of dreams, I had been hunting. Not for food, but for rotters, as always. The dreams could have easily been memories, but at the same time I somehow knew that they weren't. They weren't particularly horrible visions, but there was something about how gruesome they were, how they dragged on and on with new gory images passing through my subconscious, that unnerved me, along with that feeling of thrill that I woke up with. I watched myself, felt myself, slice through rotter after rotter. The way my hatchets looked rending through decaying flesh and bone was so vivid, and I never even knew that I was dreaming until I had already woken up.

It was true that what I had been doing in the dreams wasn't anything new to me; I hunted almost constantly before the injuries. It was just what I did, but the hunting itself wasn't what disturbed me. It was myself. Before spraining my ankle, I had always slaughtered the dead, almost like some kind of naive mission to rid the world of them. Only, I was beginning to understand that maybe that wasn't really what it was. Now that I hadn't been able to hunt, I couldn't avoid that it wasn't just hatred for the dead that drove my murder sprees. I craved it, _needed_ it, like some kind of addict. But my drug of choice was far more dangerous for those around me than it was for myself. My vice was killing.

There had to be something wrong with me. I was crazy. A psychotic murder addict or something. Though thankfully, it was never people in my dreams. I only hunted the dead. That, of course, didn't change the fact that I had killed people. Not just the douche-bag whose corpse I had pulled the guns off of either. I knew that I should probably feel bad about it, but I just couldn't bring myself to anymore. There was a time when I did, but now the only thing I felt bad about was that I _didn't_ feel remorse over killing. What did that make me?

 _A monster. But that's why you're still here. Don't get all pathetic now, Zeke. Those people deserved exactly what they got,_ my logic answered for me, in a matter of fact manner.

"Not all of them," I whispered, glancing down from the window to my shaking hands. They clasped together and gripped each other so hard that my knuckles turned white, and I leaned against the counter for support now.

 _Yeah, maybe not. Though the ones who didn't, wouldn't be dead if you had been stronger. If your humanity hadn't gotten in the way. You lost control. That's why you know that you_ can't _let it get in the way anymore._

Exhaling a long breath, I slowly nodded in agreement. My hands released each other, and I stood up straight again, uselessly smoothing out wrinkles in my shirt(Michonne had thrown one at me sometime in the early part of the week, telling me to stop walking around like a half-clothed savage.) before my eyes focused on the outside as they had been before.

Soon they, along with my head, snapped to the side as I heard the sound of a door closing quietly. I saw the movement in the hallway, realizing that someone had just come out of one of the bedrooms. Recognizing the room as Carl's, my eyes were also met with the familiar figure of the boy himself. He hadn't noticed me standing in the kitchen yet.

His sheriff's hat was absent from his head, one of his hands running up into his hair for a moment and messing it up slightly, in a way that made my stomach do a back-flip. The flannel shirt that he usually wore was gone as well, leaving him in just the long-sleeved shirt he always had on underneath. A mildly inappropriate thought wishing he had even less clothing crossed my mind, but it was gone in an instant when I saw the same hand that had just ran through his hair, wipe his eyes briefly.

It looked like he might have been crying, but I couldn't tell yet, not from where I was. I started towards him just as he stopped in the living room, realizing I wasn't in my bed. He looked up to me when I moved, finally noticing my conscious presence, as he surely expected me to still be sleeping.

"Zeke," he muttered, more in surprise than in greeting.

"Carl," I responded in a similar way, though with a different tone. I stopped in front of him, trying to meet his eyes, but he was having none of it. "Everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. I was just coming out here to- um..." he trailed off, not finishing his statement.

Taking the liberty of finishing for him, I somewhat cheekily suggested, "Watch me sleep? I'm flattered. Sorry to ruin it for you."

In response, he glared at me. Once again, it worked without fail. Even when Carl was trying to avoid eye contact, he seemed to forget about it when I irritated him. For a second, I smirked back, but the expression slipped off of my face when I took a moment to look at Carl's eyes. They had bags underneath them that had worsened since a few hours before when I had seen them, and they looked a bit red and puffy.

He seemed to register that I saw this, and he looked away again, down at the floor. "Well, I didn't think you'd be up, so I'm gonna go back to my room..." he mumbled, turning and about to make a break for it, but I grabbed his elbow lightly. He stopped without much resistance, but he still refused to look at me.

"Carl."

"What?" he asked, his voice blank.

"What's up?" I asked softly, concern showing in my tone. _Zeke..._ my logic began in the back of my head, but despite agreeing to the lecture earlier I ignored it for now. This was different. It was Carl. Besides, I had already ignored my logical inclination to leave Carl and Michonne, so this couldn't hurt much more.

"The sky," Carl responded dryly, but it sounded more like he wanted to say, "Let me go."

In response, I pulled him closer to me, though my grip stayed gentle. If he really wanted to leave, he could just yank his arm away and go to his room. He turned back towards me as I pulled, but his eyes were still avoiding mine, focused on the floor again. On a whim, my other hand reached out to Carl's face. I very carefully gripped his chin in between my thumb and index finger, slowly lifting his head up and practically forcing him to meet my gaze, which with this bold invasion of personal space, he did. We just stared for a few moments, and I realized that our faces weren't that far away from each other. I tried not to get lost in the cerulean of his eyes, attempting to remember what I was even trying to accomplish here in the first place.

After I had remembered, I rephrased my question, slowly and firmly asking, "What. Is. Wrong?"

Carl stared into my eyes hard, his gaze defiant. Though after another few moments, he finally relented, practically forcing out the single word, "Nightmare," before continuing to stare, his eyes harboring emotions that I couldn't decipher.

Nodding in understanding, my hands fell away from him, first his chin, then his arm. He kept looking at me, which I wasn't sure if I preferred or not. Though I didn't break the eye contact either, continuing to stare at him as I considered something. _You know, we just had a talk about this,_ the rational part of my mind complained, but once again I shut it out.

"Do you wanna do something?"

* * *

 **(Carl's POV)**

My eyebrows furrowed at the peculiar question, but at the same time my face heated up slightly as my imagination conjured up an image of Zeke kissing me, along with my mind unhelpfully urging me to say, _Yes, I want to kiss your face off._

Thankfully, I managed to not say that, instead quickly muttering a confused, and flustered response of, "What do you mean?" My blushing began to get worse, so I looked away from him, picking at imaginary lint on my shirt. Though I was unable to stop thinking about the way he had gently, but at the same time almost forcefully, made me look at him and all but demanded I tell him what was bothering me. My chin was still tingling from where his fingers had been.

It did things to my body it shouldn't have. _He_ did things to my body that he shouldn't. There were times when he would just look at me for a second too long, like maybe he was having the same thoughts, the same desires that I was, and it made me weak in the knees. Every time we touched, I was surprised actual sparks didn't fly, because I felt a jolt of energy at every point of contact with Zeke. It frequently felt like he had his hands in my mind, playing with my thoughts and emotions like they were silly putty.

Zeke seemed to consider my question for a moment, humming as his eyes scanned the room in thought. Then he looked back at me, smirking as he vaguely elaborated with, "We'll go on an adventure."

He was doing that thing where he turned my brains into silly putty again. "Uh, you mean like leaving the house?" I asked dumbly, still only giving him occasional glances.

A quiet chuckle emitted from his throat, and when my gaze darted to him this time, he was nodding with amusement dancing in his dark eyes. Still smirking too. "Yeah. Wouldn't be much of an adventure otherwise," he answered.

My eyes locked onto his sprained ankle, still covered in pink compression wrap. When I had made it clear what I was looking at, I met his gaze again, now that my blush had died down. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea. You're not fully healed up yet, and if we run into trouble-" I started, only to be cut off.

"Bullshit, I'm fine!" Zeke exclaimed, his tone insistent. He stretched his ankle out in front of him for me to see, slowly rotating it before pressing it against the floor, probably to emphasize that he could put weight on it. "Come on, Carl, I've barely left the house in over a week. I'm _dying_ to do something. Anything! It doesn't have to be something crazy. We can just like walk around and explore the woods around the house or something. Plus, it might get your mind off of things," he continued, his eyes boring into me as he waited for an answer.

Trying to resist, I opened my mouth to try to form some excuse. Though apparently my hesitation to respond was too much for Zeke, and he spoke again.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked, though his tone was a bit antagonistic. It was almost a challenge. Scowling at him, I realized that he was smirking again. It was _definitely_ a challenge.

"Nothing. I just don't want you to get eaten by walkers," I countered.

"I told you, I'm fine. My ankle is almost good as new, and my side doesn't hurt like hell. I'm on the way to getting that _gnarly_ scar," he responded, still teasing me for my use of the word when I had first seen his side after Michonne stitched it up. My head shook at this, and I scoffed a bit, suppressing a smile when it threatened to stretch across my lips. "I'm not that bad off anymore. I can kill rotters. We'll be fine," he finished more seriously, attempting to reassure me.

I was pretty sure it was working. Sighing in relent, I nodded. "Just let me grab my gun."

* * *

My hat was on my head again, my gun belt adorning my waist so that I had my dad's revolver and my knife. Zeke and I had slipped out of the house from one of the windows on the bottom floor, not wanting to wake Michonne. We didn't even want her to know that we were gone, and if everything went as planned, she would never even know that we had left in the first place.

Zeke was walking beside me, wearing that light, rough-looking coat of his. It had a tear in it, crimson staining the area around the rip, along with probably having scorch marks on the inside of it now from when we used it to put out the fire that we accidentally started with the candle. He had his hatchets hanging over his back, but those were the only weapons he had brought(other than the switchblade that I was pretty sure he had on him somewhere), opting to leave the guns at home. When I asked him why, he said we shouldn't need them, and that guns weren't really his thing anyways.

We were following what used to be a trail that led from the backyard of the house, into the woods. We weren't sure where it was taking us, but we figured it was a good of a path as any. The forest was starting to reclaim the trail, and it was obvious that it wasn't as cleared out as it used to be, but it still wasn't as thick and overgrown as the foliage lining either side of it.

At first, we walked in silence. It wasn't necessarily an uncomfortable silence, surprisingly enough, and Zeke just looked to be enjoying all of the fresh air he was getting. He had torn the compression wrap off of his ankle as soon as I had left the room earlier, and I was hoping that it wasn't done prematurely. He didn't look to be hurting though, and I was hoping he would swallow his pride and tell me if he was. I was enjoying the fresh air in a way too, even though I hadn't been confined to the house like he had. Zeke was right, and despite us not really doing much of anything, this was distracting me from thinking about my nightmare. Though I wasn't planning on telling him that.

Suddenly, I heard the older boy's voice from beside me. "Hey. I know you probably don't want to talk about whatever you dreamed about, but if you do want to talk-" he began to offer as we walked. His gaze was focused on the trail ahead, while I looked at him as he spoke. Though I cut him off once he got where he did, already knowing what he was going to say.

"You're right. I don't want to talk about it," I interrupted pretty rudely, which I realized immediately, but was too stubborn to take it back.

This time, Zeke looked at me, while my eyes focused on the trail ahead. It was pretty dark out in the thickly-wooded wilderness, despite the moon's bright beams. It was a bit eery, but also serene in a way. We hadn't run into any walkers yet either. Eventually, the glare that I realized Zeke had been giving me dropped away, and he focused on the trail ahead as well. Feeling guilty, since he was actually being pretty nice to me tonight, I reached out and gingerly took his wrist, almost expecting him to wrench it out of my grasp. Though he didn't, glancing over at me. I stopped for a moment, causing him to stop as well since we were linked now.

"But if I did want to talk about it... I would talk to you. So, thank you," I said, and I was almost apologizing as much as I was thanking him. He got that look on his face then, the one I had started to become accustomed to. It was the one where he wanted to smile, I could tell he did, but it was like he couldn't quite manage it anymore, like it was physically impossible for him. He nodded in response, resuming walking.

Following him, some wild impulse ran straight to the hand that was holding on to his wrist, and without my brain's permission, the hand refused to release. Instead, it slipped down, into Zeke's hand, grabbing onto it. We both kept walking, and I was trying to ignore the disobedience of my hand, staring straight ahead and feeling pretty stupid. Zeke's hand was limp in mine, and I was expecting him to extract it any second now. I could feel him, see him too, out of the corner of my eye, glancing at our hands. Then his hand gripped mine back, and he kept on staring ahead too, like nothing was even happening. Like this was just normal.

 _Well, this isn't the first time you've held his hand like a clingy schoolgirl. Maybe he's just getting used to it,_ my mind suggested, once again, very unhelpfully. Though I realized my hostile thoughts were easy to ignore when focusing on the warmth of Zeke's hand in mine.

Just when I was starting to think that this path went absolutely nowhere but deeper into the woods, I saw something up ahead. Zeke had no doubt noticed it too, but he didn't say anything, his eyes focused ahead on the opening when I risked another look at him. There was a noise too, something that I couldn't quite place, but that I knew was buried somewhere in my mind. It was also up ahead, whatever it was.

The path opened up into a clearing, inadequate lighting no longer a problem as there were no trees to block out the lunar rays anymore. And it was brilliant.

The noise was a small waterfall. It wasn't one of those huge, roaring beasts, thankfully, considering that would attract all the wrong kinds of attention. No, this one wasn't audible until very close to the edge of the treeline. It ran down into an average-sized pool, and it looked like it might have some decent depth to it. All of the water glistened beautifully in the moonlight.

"Woah..." I commented in awe. Zeke's facial expression indicated that he was equally impressed, though he didn't say anything.

That was, until two walkers shuffled out of the trees off to our left. He released my hand immediately, and in the same instant his other hand unsheathed his right hatchet. "I got 'em," he muttered. He was glaring intensely at the two walking corpses, and he marched towards them.

"Zeke, wai-" I began, but it broke off into a sigh and I decided to save my breath, knowing that he wasn't going to listen to me anyways. My hand instinctively reached for my knife, just in case. Though I didn't need it. Zeke wasn't lying to me about being able to fight the undead, and in two quick swipes, both of the walkers heads were severed in half. He seemed to look around for more, and when none showed up, he quickly wiped the blood off of his hatchet and sheathed it again, walking away from the corpses, towards the pool.

Watching him for a moment, I followed. He stood on a large flat rock that was near the edge of the pool, watching the waterfall. "This is pretty cool," he commented quietly, though I was unsure if he was even talking to me or not. I was standing a little ways behind him, so I wasn't even sure if he knew that I had followed him over.

"Yeah," I agreed from behind him anyways, watching the waterfall as well. Then movement registered, and I glanced over to see Zeke lifting his sheathes over his head, taking off his hatchets and laying them on the rock. Then, he took off his coat, dropping it down as well. "What are you doing?" I asked, watching him with a puzzled expression.

Glancing back at me, he smirked before abruptly pulling his shirt off and leaving it with the rest of his things. "Swimming," he answered simply. I stood completely still, trying not to stare as Zeke continued to nonchalantly strip. My face was suddenly on fire. His boots came off next, and then his socks. When I heard the sound of his belt buckle being undone, I think I may have forgotten my own name briefly.

Completely stunned, I just tried to look anywhere but Zeke. Thankfully, when I did happen to glance at him,(I mean, obviously it was an accident. It's not like I was trying to peep or anything.) I saw him going towards the water in his boxers. Which basically meant that I could breathe a little bit, since there wasn't a fully-naked Zeke in front of me.

Standing there awkwardly, I pretended to be very interested in the forest as I listened to the splashing sounds of the boy entering the water. "Hey, the water isn't so bad. You coming, Carl?" Zeke called, and when I looked back he was in the middle of the pool, treading water. His dark hair hung down his face in wet strands, and he watched me expectantly.

Managing to compose myself some, I looked at Zeke disapprovingly as I stepped slightly closer to the pool. "You're going to freeze your balls off when you get out of there. So no, you can count me out of that," I replied dryly, sitting down on the rock next to Zeke's clothes and hatchets. Hugging my knees to my chest, I rested my chin on one of them.

"It's a warm night, it'll be fine. I thought you were fearless?" Zeke challenged me, again. That stupid smirk of his had also returned.

"Not that warm! And yeah, there's a difference between not being afraid and being stupid. We don't even have any towels to dry off with! You're probably going to get hypothermia or something, dumbass," I countered, trying to remain rational. Even though my mind couldn't ignore the fact that there was a wet Zeke, dressed in only his underwear, beckoning to me, and that was weakening my resolve a bit.

"We can air dry. And if we're still wet, we can find some towels when we get back. Come on, Carl! You could probably use a bath anyways," he quipped, causing me to glare at him.

Grumbling something unintelligible as a last protest, I reluctantly got to my feet. "If we freeze to death or something, it's gonna be your fault," I stated as I removed my gun belt and laid it down on the stone.

"I take full responsibility," Zeke agreed, his voice amused, along with a tinge of something else that I couldn't place.

Taking off my hat, I rested it on the stone slowly, sort of procrastinating taking off my actual clothes. I had never gotten undressed in front of another person before. At least, not one who wasn't related to me. It was a bit unnerving. Zeke did it almost as if he was used to taking his clothes off in front of strangers. Speaking of the other boy, when I glanced up he still hadn't moved from the place in the pool. He was watching me like he was still trying to talk me into coming into the water with him, even though I had already agreed to it. His face seemed to flush when he noticed me look at him, and I knew I couldn't let him off too easily.

"Don't watch me, you creep!" I exclaimed, even though my face was starting to warm at the very thought of him watching me undress.

"I wasn't-" he began, but instead he just groaned and covered his face before disappearing underwater.

Laughing a bit to myself, I went about taking the rest of my clothes off, a bit more at ease now that Zeke was momentarily out of sight. I heard him resurface when I was taking off my jeans, but I also heard the telltale sloshing of the water as he swam, meaning he probably wasn't focused on me anymore. Once my clothes were in a pile(except my underwear of course), I stood on the stone, looking at the pool apprehensively. Zeke said the water wasn't that bad, but the air on my exposed skin was already giving me goosebumps. I had a feeling the pool in front of me was going to be even colder.

"You can swim, right?" Zeke asked teasingly from the water. He was lingering by the waterfall now, and even though he had moved, he was treading water and watching me again. Waiting for me to get in probably.

Glaring at him, I didn't provide a vocal response, deciding it would be better to just show him. Breaking into a full sprint, I jumped as far as I could once I was at the edge of the water. My knees tucked up against my chest and I wrapped my arms around them, turning myself into a human cannonball.

Zeke hadn't lied, and the water wasn't actually too cold. It still shocked my body a bit, but I knew I would get used to the temperature soon enough. It was actually pretty refreshing.

The pool wasn't that deep, and I struck the bottom, sort of sitting there. However, it was deep enough that it didn't hurt when I hit the muddy ground. I pushed off of it with my feet, shooting upwards and breaking the surface. Taking a deep breath to recover lost air, I looked around for Zeke. He was nowhere to be seen at first, until I heard something surface behind me.

"Show off," the familiar voice grumbled, and I spun around to smirk at him. Despite his tone, he had that wanting to smile look on his face again.

"You're just jealous that you can't make an entrance like that," I mocked.

"If I didn't have a sprained ankle, I could have made an entrance ten times cooler than that."

"Excuses, excuses..." I trailed off, biting my bottom lip to repress laughter at the completely fake scowl that I was getting from him now. I glanced away from the amusing expression on his face for a brief second to try and better control the urge to burst out laughing, but when I looked back, he wasn't feigning annoyance anymore. His eyes were on my bottom lip, as my teeth still dug into it. I also realized that whether or not we were doing it on purpose, we had been shifting closer to each other as we tread water.

Moments like this confused me. I liked Zeke. I knew that I did, despite however much I denied it. There were times when I got mad at him, and I also knew that I hadn't really forgiven him for leaving yet. Sometimes, I wanted nothing more than to push him away, and yell and scream in his face. But that was only sometimes.

Other times, I wanted us to be friends. I would think about us talking and laughing as we had actually managed to do sometimes, except in my imagination all of the tension was gone. It usually brought a smile to my face. I would think about showing Zeke that he could be with Michonne and I, and that he didn't have to be afraid of whatever it was that had scared him into isolation.

Though for some reason, the idea of us just being friends didn't exactly sit right with me in the end. After I would think about us being friends, other thoughts would always follow. I would think about us kissing, or holding hands. I would think about us sleeping in the same bed together like I had seen couples do, our limbs tangled together. I would think about other scenarios where we were in the same bed together, but certainly were not sleeping, his hands roaming all over me and touching me in places where no one ever has before.

All of those thoughts made the thought of us just being friends a near unbearable one. Though I tried not to think about any of it, because it made me feel like an idiot to be crushing on him like this. He probably didn't feel remotely the same towards me. _Maybe_ he wanted to be friends, but I doubted his thoughts and emotions extended beyond that.

But then moments like this would happen. Zeke looked like he wanted to kiss me. I _wanted_ him to want to kiss me. Knowing what he was focused on, I reacted before I even really knew what I was doing. My teeth slid across my bottom lip, chewing on the corner of it coyly as I watched Zeke's eyes dilate in response. It was hard to tell with how dark the brown orbs already were, but I was observing carefully and his pupils were definitely blown.

The realization that I might actually be flirting was creeping up on me. I had never really flirted with anyone before, so I tried to pass my intentions off as innocent to myself when deep down, I knew they were anything but.

Our eyes locked, and I wondered if my _not_ flirting was working. We stared at each other, maybe a foot of shining, moonlight-reflecting water between us. I wanted to move even closer, to lean in, but I guess I wasn't brave enough for that. Forget shooting people and stabbing walkers, the idea of kissing Zeke was far more terrifying at the moment. I was hoping that he might initiate, but maybe he was just as scared as I was.

Maybe I was wrong, and he didn't really want to kiss me at all. I found myself thinking this when he broke eye contact, and then the moment was over almost as abruptly as it had began. He moved backwards to a more socially acceptable distance, and I tried not to feel too disappointed, glancing away from him to look down at the water. I focused on staring into the darkness and trying to see my legs moving back and forth beneath me instead of on Zeke.

Suddenly a miniature wave splashed me in the face. I recoiled, sputtering out water and trying to blink away the drops that had gotten in my eyes. Glaring at the culprit, I asked, "What the heck was that for?" my voice somewhere between annoyed and begrudgingly amused at the older boy's behavior. He had another smirk on his face. That seemed to be the choice facial expression for the night for him.

"Excuses, excuses," Zeke elaborated, his bad mimicry of my voice sounding insultingly like a thirteen year old girl.

Trying to intensify my glare became harder, because all I really wanted to do was laugh. I felt my lips start to curl in an amused way, and I splashed him back with a larger wave as I scoffed, "Real mature."

Zeke's arm came up to shield his face from my splashing, and I heard him chuckle. In the time that I had known him for, I had found Zeke to be a master at suppressing his laughter, even more so than me most of the time. So whenever I did hear it, a small part of me felt victorious. "Hey, most of my social interaction recently has been with a- wait, how old are you? Ten? Twelve? Yeah, most of my social interaction has been with a twelve year old boy recently, so-" he began jokingly, but I cut him off by mustering up the biggest wave I could, using both of my arms to splash him.

"Fuck you!" I yelled, but my tone didn't conceal my amusement so it was probably hard to be insulted by the words. My arms continued waving as I splashed.

Then he was really laughing, both of his arms held up in defense against my onslaught. After a few moments, he disappeared underneath the surface. It actually took me a second to realize with my wild splashing, and as I looked around in anticipation, I suddenly felt hands grip my shoulders from behind.

They dunked me into the water quickly, barely giving me time to shut my eyes before I disappeared with an admittedly undignified squeal of surprise, but I wasn't really afraid. I knew it was Zeke. He was strong, but I could tell that he wasn't pushing with too much pressure, probably just in case I got freaked out. Once I was under, his hands lifted off of me.

Resurfacing, I spit out water and scowled at him again, over my shoulder, before the expression morphed into a smirk. "That all you got?" I challenged, swiveling to face him. We locked eyes, and I was fairly sure that the mischievous look in his eyes was reflected in mine.

"No, I just didn't want to drown y-" he started, but once again I didn't let him finish. Lunging at him, my arms wrapped around his shoulders, and even though I wasn't all that heavy, my weight was enough to submerge him with my surprise attack.

When he came up a second later, I somehow ended up on his back. I hadn't even had time to move away, so as he popped back up, he threw my balance off and almost made me fall backwards into the water. My natural reaction was to grab on, and so my arms wrapped around his neck(low enough as to not strangle him, obviously, with my arms pressed against his collar bones), my legs also encircling his waist. It happened so fast, and so before I even knew what I was doing, I was clinging to him like a spider monkey. We were both laughing in a surprisingly happy way.

After I realized my new position, the laughter died in my throat. My face was on fire, and I was actually kind of mortified. Remembering that he was still injured as my eyes caught on the dark thread of the stitches, I immediately felt like even more of an idiot than I already did and realized that I probably wasn't helping the healing process at all. I was about to release, but just before I could, Zeke suddenly started swimming, almost as if I wasn't on his back at all. Obviously, I could still just let go if I wanted to, but the motion startled me into continuing to hold on. It occurred to me that maybe my extra weight wasn't really affecting him as much as I originally had thought.

His face was only a few inches to the side of mine, so when I glanced over I didn't move my head much, too nervous to be staring into his eyes again. We were already close enough as it was with my chest pressed against his back, and heat was radiating off of him, along with that feeling of electricity. I felt like I should get off of him, but at the same time I very much wanted to keep holding on. As anxious as I was being so close, I was almost addicted to the tingling where our bare skin touched, the warmth that passed between us. "Um, sorry. I didn't mean to grab on like this," I mumbled, giving a nervous chuckle, my grip beginning to slacken as I pulled away a bit.

Though I froze when I felt Zeke's hand grip my arm. "You're fine," he nearly whispered, and I noticed him glance at me for a brief moment, before his hand dropped away. He continued to swim. My grip readjusted, and I stayed where I was, trying not to over think it.

When I looked up, I saw that Zeke was taking us towards the waterfall. Once we got there, he unexpectedly went underwater, and, by default, so did I, just managing to take a breath before my face went under. The sensation of the waterfall hitting me, even underneath the surface, felt amazing. A moment later, Zeke brought us back up on the other side.

"That was- Ah!" I yelped, meaning to finish with "awesome", but I was thrown off by Zeke. Not just with my words either. I mean, I was literally _thrown off_ , and when we surfaced, I caught a glimpse of a devilish smirk on his face right before he tipped backwards suddenly, causing me to fall off of his back and into the waterfall again.

Swimming out of the waterfall, I resurfaced next to Zeke, glaring at him as he laughed. "You're an asshole!" I exclaimed as I shoved his shoulder, although my voice was on the brink of breaking into laughter as well. Apparently that was hilarious, because he just laughed harder, almost having trouble keeping himself afloat now due to the intensity of it.

After another moment of it, he managed to control himself, meeting my gaze and clearing his throat like nothing happened. Though he couldn't keep the straight face, and suddenly he did something that I had never really seen him do.

He smiled.

Sure, he had sort of smiled when he laughed, but that was different somehow. It had still always been suppressed, not a genuine smile, and he would usually even turn his face away when he did it, like others weren't allowed to see that particular expression on his face.

Now, he was looking directly at me, the large, toothy grin plastered across his face. It was lopsided, and goofy-looking, and amazing, and heart-stopping.

"Holy shit," I breathed quietly, deciding that I was going to have some fun with this.

The smile stayed, but Zeke's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What?"

"This is a miracle," I stated dramatically.

" _What?_ " he asked, more insistently, gesturing with a hand for me to elaborate.

"You can _smile_ ," I teased, my voice in mock awe. Zeke's lips pressed together, hiding his teeth, but he couldn't seem to rid himself of the expression altogether. "I thought the muscles in your face must be paralyzed or something, but you must have gotten better!" I continued, causing him to turn his face away from me, the small smile still there. He was moving like he was about to flee, his arms swiping through the water as he started to spin his back to me.

Laughing, I reached forward, my hand lightly grabbing his bicep for a moment to pacify him. "I'm kidding," I assured, smiling too at this point. Before I could stop myself, I quietly added, "It's nice," with a thoughtless murmur.

When his eyes focused on me again, something in them that I couldn't read, I felt my face heating up again(for the hundredth time of the night) as I realized what I had said. Though his cheeks looked to be tinted a light pink as well. "It's nice?" he asked a bit teasingly, probably as payback, though it also sounded like he might truly want to know.

Mulling it over for a moment, I responded bravely yet simply with, "Yeah." He looked caught off guard, although he didn't break eye contact. We did that annoying staring thing that kept happening for a few moments before I broke it off. I looked up at where the water cascaded down the rocky cliff above us, just for something to look at, but doing so gave me an idea.

Swimming closer to the bank, I looked over at the rocky wall leading up to the cliff. It actually looked almost perfect for climbing. "I'm going to check the cliff out," I murmured, gesturing upwards to where the water was falling from before I made a move for land.

"Yeah, alright. I bet it will be cool up there, we can jump back in," Zeke murmured, and I heard the sounds of him swimming not far behind me. Turning back to him as I ungracefully lumbered out of the water, I held up my hand for him to stop, my head shaking. He wasn't out of the water yet, but he was to the shallow part where he was standing, the top half of his body exposed. I tried not to stare at the way his torso glistened with droplets of water clinging to it.

"No, no. _I_ am going up there. You can't. Your ankle, remember?" I said sternly. He was looking at me incredulously.

"Really, with the ankle thing again? I thought we were past this," he complained.

A small chuckle escaped my throat, and I gave my head another quick shake. "I may 've agreed to this little adventure you wanted to go on, but I am not letting you climb. Do you wanna hurt yourself worse and have to be taken care of for another week or two? I mean, that's assuming Michonne wouldn't murder both of us," I argued, a small smile crossing my face as I gave him a knowing look.

The defeated sigh he gave let me know that he knew I was right, and he scowled briefly before beginning to retreat into the water again. "Fine. Don't die," he muttered with a slightly sour tone, though I had figured out that as callous as the words sounded, they were Zeke's way of telling me to be careful.

Smirking, I nodded at him once before turning and making my way over to the wall. It wasn't very hard to climb, and within a few moments, I was on top of the cliff. The stream that ended in the waterfall was now in front of me, and my eyes followed it back for a minute. It came out of more trees, so I couldn't see wherever it began, even though I wasn't really looking that hard in the first place.

Instead, I focused on where the stream ran over the cliff, walking over to stand at the edge of the rock. The area around the water, including the rock under my feet, was stained darker than the rest of the hard surface due to being wet down.

The first thing I saw when I looked down to the pool, was Zeke. He appeared to be somehow standing a short distance in front of the waterfall, which shouldn't be possible unless he grew an extra four or five feet, and he was looking back up at me. "I found a rock," he called in explanation, and I realized I must have been giving him a puzzled look. "I'm standing here so that you don't jump on it and break your face."

A slight laugh left me, and I nodded in understanding as I called down to him, "Thanks." It came out a lot less sincere than it probably should have been, considering he was standing right where I probably would have jumped. I try not to shudder at the thought of our carefree swim ending with one of my legs snapping, but I probably fail. The pool isn't that far down, but it is still far enough that if I landed on a rock, it would cause some serious damage. It's a bit worrying that we didn't already find this rock with all of our swimming, but I shrug it away and tell myself that means it is likely the only one there is.

"Just don't break yourself. And don't land on me," he replied, and if I couldn't see the ghost of a smirk flash across his face, I wouldn't have known that he was joking in his usual dry way.

"I'm not going to land on you," I shot back a bit indignantly, mustering up the best glare that I could give him with how content I currently felt. Bending my knees, I prepared to jump. Though to my horror, right as my feet were leaving the stone, one of them actually slipped on the slick surface beneath me. I had been aiming for an area behind Zeke, but now...

I was going to land on him.

Frantically, I tried to somehow alter my flight path. At this point, I was a lot less worried about possibly landing on the rock, then about the fact that I was going to slam into Zeke. Despite his many claims that he was completely fine, I knew that he was still recovering, and I didn't want to aggravate his injuries, not to mention horribly embarrass myself. Though in the end it didn't really matter, and I just sort of uselessly wriggled in the air a bit, not affecting anything as I fell. My eyes closed, as any second I expected to feel the impact of my body hitting the other boy's and both of us falling into the water.

But that didn't happen.

Confusion was the first thing I felt as I suddenly jolted to a stop, and I could feel myself sort of pressed against what I realized was Zeke. My hands had instinctively reached out to grab something instead of flailing around like they had been before, and I could feel his sides underneath my palm, right above his waistline, my fingers grasping him so hard at first that my knuckles were probably white.

He had caught me.

My head was actually resting against his shoulder. I became hyper-aware of his hands on me, one on either side of my ribcage. My legs were straight, rigid underneath me, occasionally drifting into Zeke's and only partially in the water as he was still holding me up. Holding me against him, our bare chests pressed against each other. He seemed somewhat stunned, surprised into momentary paralysis.

After a moment, I laughed quietly, a noise somewhere between nervous and relieved. I tried to ignore the way that whenever I breathed in, the close proximity caused me to breathe _him_ in, but after a few times I gave into it, savoring how he smelled. My eyes were still closed. We were both soaked, despite our torsos being exposed right now, but he still had a very distinct aroma, like a mixture of several different smells. Like sweat, which was definitely way more appealing than it probably should have been. Like the earth, almost as if he'd rolled around on the forest floor, in the dirt and the fallen leaves, or maybe like he was just a force of nature himself. Like blood, the sickeningly sweet scent the easiest to discern, and it was also disturbingly pleasant in a way, not like the disgusting smell of the rotten walker blood. At first, I wasn't all that surprised by the blood smell, considering half of the time I saw Zeke he was practically bathing in the stuff, but then I remembered that it was all walker blood. It was probably just from the guy that he told Michonne and I that he had killed, but that was a considerable amount of time ago. I shrugged it off, but in the back of my mind part of me entertained the idea that the scent of fresh blood always clung to Zeke, like it was just his smell as much as it was the smell of blood. The idea, along with the tantalizing blend of scents that was Zeke, made my own blood run hot and my heart race in my chest as it pumped the crimson fluid throughout my body.

 _Wait a minute, what am I doing? Am I actually smelling him?! What is wrong with me?! I need to get away from him. I need to get out of this water. I need to- Oh._

My thought process was cut short when I felt Zeke carefully separate us, my head slipping from his shoulder and my chest peeling away from his as he set me down in front of him, my feet touching the rock that he had warned me about. Though despite no longer suspending me like he had been, his hands lingered on my sides. My hands released his sides, almost pulling away from him altogether, but instead sliding around to just barely rest against his abdomen, my fingertips lightly pressing against the area right above his waist. I was afraid to lose the contact between us, knowing that it wasn't likely I could get it back again. My eyes opened, but since I was far too anxious to look at his face, my gaze fell to watch my own hands.

"You know I said _not_ to land on me, right?" Zeke asked quietly, the words sarcastic, but his tone was soft, almost nervous. Was he? His hands still hadn't left me yet, and mine refused to leave him, despite slight protests from my brain. Though apparently my hands didn't take orders from my head anymore. Experimentally, my fingertips almost lifted off of him, my hands beginning to ghost up his stomach slowly.

Normally, I would have come up with a witty retort of my own, or at least a good "fuck you" or something in defense, but my words had all but abandoned me. Before I even realized it, I was practically whispering, "Yeah," in response. After another moment, I managed to explain a bit with, "I slipped," though they were the only words that would come out.

When his hands moved, I almost jumped out of my skin. By some miracle, I managed to mostly contain the surprise, the only giveaway being a slight twitch, to which he froze, clearly noticing. Though I quickly relaxed into the touch, wordlessly giving him permission without even looking at him, but regardless, he seemed to realize this. With that, his hands continued their path down my sides, moving very slowly, inching along really, but it wasn't like the light touches I was giving him. His palms were pressed against my body, all of his fingers making contact as well. My sides tingled, and my skin felt too hot under his hands.

I relished every second of it.

Eventually, they came to rest on my hips, going to the only clothed part of my body. Well, mostly. His thumbs were still lingering around the waistband of my underwear, brushing the skin right above. I tried not to think about how easy it would be for him to slip the appendages into the garment and pull them down. The very thought terrified me. Worried me. Excited me.

At this point, I didn't think I would stop him. My breaths started to come faster, and my hands stopped where they had been mapping his body. I still hadn't dared to look up at him, now just staring at where my hands were on his chest and waiting for whatever he was going to do. Though he didn't do anything, and after a little while it became apparent that he wasn't going to. His hands were just there, but he wasn't trying anything else. Part of me was relieved, since I was unsure of what to do in a situation like that anyways, but the hormones coursing through my teenage head wanted him to rip my last shred of modesty away and then do... something.

The thing was, I wasn't really sure what I wanted him to do, since I wasn't sure how that all worked. I mean, I knew about sex. Sex between a man and a woman at least. Not between two guys. Obviously no one had ever thought to teach me about that, and when I learned that two men could even do that with each other I just thought it was strange. I hadn't really understood the point.

I think I did now.

Not to say I really wanted to have sex at this moment, but my raging teenage boy hormones weren't getting that memo.

Now that I could stop thinking about what Zeke's hands were doing, since they were still, my own hands started to move again. The fingers of my right hand very gently and very carefully began to brush over the stitches on his side. He shivered, causing my hand to jerk away from his injury, and I wondered if he winced, unsure since I still had yet to summon up the courage to look at his face. Apparently my words were still refusing to come to mind, because all I said was, "Hurt?" my tone questioning and a bit concerned, thinking that I might have caused him more pain.

There was silence for a moment, but I actually think he was shaking his head. He must have realized that I wasn't looking at him, because then he followed up with, "No. You're okay. It just felt... strange."

Nodding, I wondered if he was also avoiding looking at my face. Some weird impulse caused me to once again almost caress the row of stitches, my hand running all the way along the length of the closed gash now. His body shuddered again, and his hands actually squeezed my hips for a second. I gasped quietly at the sudden, sharp sensation, my face immediately alight with embarrassment afterwards. I was also burning up because I was struck with the realization that all of this touching and whispering and not looking at each other was beginning to arouse me. It wasn't really noticeable yet, and my underwear were actually below the surface of the water, but I tried not to think about the way the remainder of my clothing would be plastered to my body if we got out right now. I also tried and failed very hard, for different reasons, at trying not to think about the way Zeke's underwear would be stuck against his skin as well when we got out. That line of thought definitely wasn't helping the situation downstairs.

Ignoring my excitement and attempting to will it away as best as I could, I focused on Zeke again(which admittedly didn't help, but I didn't care). He wasn't moving, was barely even breathing. It felt like he was putting all his energy into remaining completely still, though occasionally light pressure would apply to my hips. It seemed like when he did squeeze at all, it was almost absentminded, like he didn't realize he was even doing it. My left hand came up to rest on his shoulder, gripping it lightly, but my right one continued what it was doing, touching but not touching as it went up his chest. It stopped in the center.

Carefully, my palm pressed flat against his skin, my fingers spreading. Every movement I made was gentle, cautious, like he was a wild animal that might run away. If he was, I didn't think I could tame him. I didn't even think I wanted to.

His heartbeat was thrumming underneath my hand, quick and irregular. He was just as nervous as I was. I stared at my hand, like maybe if I looked hard enough I could open a doorway into Zeke's chest and reach in. For a few moments, I didn't move, simply enjoying the pounding from his chest and ignoring the thought that maybe it was strange that I was doing so when it crossed my mind. Then I spoke, my mouth moving before I even knew it was, without permission from my head.

"It's nice. Your heart..." I trailed off quietly, wondering if I meant to say "heart _beat_ " instead, yet I didn't make any attempts to revise what I said.

"No," Zeke responded almost immediately, his voice filled with certainty. It wasn't soft or unsure like the other recent words we had exchanged. It was at a normal volume, which at this proximity and with how we had been talking, sounded shockingly loud even though I knew it wasn't. He said it like stating a fact, like I had asked him if the grass was blue. The change in his tone broke my anxiety, and my head snapped up to look at him.

Turns out, he had been looking down as well, away from me. He still was, his gaze averted even as I stared at him for a few seconds, to the point where he surely would have felt it. He wasn't talking about his heartbeat. He was talking about his _heart._ For that brief moment, Zeke was more transparent to me than he had ever been before, and I could just tell by the stony expression on his face and that one word, what he was thinking.

He didn't think he was good. In fact, he thought the opposite. I didn't know anything about the things he had done, but whatever they were, he thought that they made him bad. A monster.

I knew the feeling.

I didn't know anything about what Zeke had done, but I knew one thing. He was wrong.

Even if it was stupid, in that moment I was decided. I think I had been for a while now. And it wasn't how attractive he was; it wasn't my annoying teenage hormones messing with my thoughts. Zeke was a good person. I had seen enough of the bad ones, and I just knew he wasn't. I trusted him.

"Hey," I murmured, how gentle my tone was surprising even me for a second. My hand left his chest, and curled into a very loose fist. My knuckles rubbed against stubble that I didn't even know was there, hard to perceive with the eye, as they bumped the side of his jaw lightly, almost in a parody of punching. My way of urging him to look at me. He finally did, our eyes locking. It took my breath away for a minute, but I quickly regained it, trying to focus. "It is," I said, with that same tone of certainty that he had, despite my softer voice.

Both of my arms slid up and wrapped around the back of his neck, the lack of space between our faces evident now that we were looking at each other. My heartbeat was resounding throughout my whole body. That light pressure started again as he began to grasp my hips more firmly, but other than that he didn't move, just staring, watching what I did. My gaze kept falling away from his and down to his lips, and after a couple times of this happening, I realized his was focused on the same thing on my face. The overwhelming desire to close the gap and kiss him filled me, and I couldn't stop myself anymore.

Rocking forward on my toes to accommodate the height he had on me, I just went for it, my eyes almost closing. Though they fluttered open again as they detected a sudden movement, and to my surprise and disappointment, Zeke had turned his face to the side at the last moment. If I hadn't stopped myself mid-lean, I would have kissed his cheek.

Even though I should have been mortified at this, apparently I was having a sudden streak of confidence. I was done second guessing this whole situation. Zeke definitely wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to do the same to him. Whether this was just me being cocky or not, I refused to believe different. All of the mixed signals I had been getting from him started to make more sense now. He was stopping himself, but it wasn't because he didn't feel anything for me. I didn't know why he was, but I intended to figure out.

Instead of backing off and being embarrassed and feeling stupid, I only pushed harder, leaning in until my lips were brushing against his ear. "What are you afraid of?" I whispered before leaning back and letting the rest of my feet touch the rock beneath. I didn't let go of Zeke, just watching him and waiting.

His eyes were on me again almost as soon as I had moved back. They narrowed, his head tilting to the side as he stared with an unreadable expression. Then, without saying anything, his right hand lifted off of my hip, only to immediately move to cup the side of my face.

After a second I sort of nuzzled into the touch, unable to help myself and undeterred by the calluses I felt against my cheek. If anything I kind of liked how they felt. My eyes closed just as he started to lean in. I could feel his presence right in front of me, could practically sense the distance between our lips as if we were two opposite magnets flying towards each other. The blood was pounding in my ears, because our lips were about to connect.

Only they didn't.

Just as I felt the slightest contact of his lips brushing mine, loud growling and snarling could be heard to the side. It was unmistakably the dead, and Zeke obviously heard it too since he pulled back instantly, both of our heads turning to the noises. I didn't have time to really be disappointed as walkers started to emerge from the trees. We probably would have heard them walking through the undergrowth before now if we hadn't been so distracted.

Zeke's hands slipped off of me, and, of course, he fearlessly launched himself off the rock and started swimming towards the shoreline, right towards the dead, without saying a word. "Zeke, wait!" I hissed, worried and annoyed, going after him. He seemed to forget the fact that we were both practically naked, and we didn't know how many walkers there even were.

Okay, never mind. This was Zeke. He _ignored_ both of those things.

The walkers were coming from the same side of the shore where we left our weapons, so at least he wasn't planning on fist-fighting them(well, I hoped). I watched as he splashed out of the water ahead of me, going straight for his stuff. He reached down, and I heard him unsheathe one of his hatchets, walkers shuffling closer and closer. Just as I started to get out of the water, he turned to me. "Catch," he said, before promptly tossing something my way.

Not really having time to process, I just caught the thing on instinct, not even sure what it was until I looked down into my hands. I was holding one of Zeke's hatchets. When I glanced back up, he was looking at me over his shoulder, the other identical weapon in his hand. "You know how to use it, right?" he asked, and I honestly couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. I wasn't sure which would be more insulting.

Considering there were walkers probably not five feet in front of him now, and he still wasn't even looking their way, I didn't take the time to come up with a retort. "Yes!" I exclaimed, before urgently motioning to the corpses coming at him. He didn't even seem worried, which I honestly wasn't sure what to make of that. The corner of his mouth curled up at me in a smirk that should definitely not have been so attractive with the current situation, and he finally turned back towards the threat.

His hatchet slashed through two walkers like it was nothing, and here I was still scrambling to catch up. Glancing down at the borrowed weapon in my hands, I could admit to myself I had never really used something like this for killing walkers before, having usually stuck with guns or occasionally my knife, but I wasn't incompetent. I gripped it with both hands, charging to Zeke's side and swinging his hatchet at a walker that was nearing him while he was distracted with another corpse. It crashed into the walker's skull with a _thunk,_ right over one of its eye sockets, but it didn't slice through its head like I was hoping. Instead the weapon got lodged there, and I almost fell down with the body as it hit the ground. Maybe I was less competent than I thought.

Leaned over, I struggled for a second before managing to rip the blade out and stand up straight again just in time to watch Zeke decapitate a walker that had been coming at me, the top half of its head separating from the bottom jaw and sailing through the air with blood and gore following it.

Though as morbidly fascinating as it was, I didn't stand around for long, slipping past Zeke and heading for the next walker I saw. Determined, I actually heard something of a growl emit from myself as I brought my arm back before slashing the hatchet through the air, gripping it with only one hand this time, like Zeke did. The blade hit the corner of the walker's forehead as it lunged for me, and to my surprise and pride, it sliced through, sending a chunk of the corpse's head flying and exposing a section of its brain as it slumped to the ground.

Smiling slightly as I admired my work with a bit of pride, as screwed up as that may be, I noticed the quiet had returned. The only sounds were the waterfall and Zeke and I's breaths from the exertion. Glancing around, I saw there were six rotted corpses strewn about the grass. It wasn't that many, but I was still slightly impressed with the fact we had killed them all while being dangerously close to naked. It started to really sink in.

We killed all of those walkers in our underwear.

My eyes met Zeke's, and I could tell by the amused expression on his face that he was having the same realization. His face broke into a grin, and mine did too, and then we both started to laugh a bit. We probably looked a bit ridiculous, standing here with hatchets in our hands and only undergarments on our bodies, among a smattering of corpses.

"Did we really just kill those walkers in our underwear?" I asked incredulously, managing to suppress my laughter.

Though that didn't last long, as I just about lost my shit when Zeke cockily responded with, "No big deal. I could have taken them all if I was nude."

* * *

 **thewalkerinme:** **Thanks xD**

 **The Sorrowful Deity:** **Yeahhh... a little bit. I mean, not that there's any of that in this chapter or anything... XD**

 **laverneanimemaster360:** **Haha, no worries. I knew what you were trying to say. I feel like everyone is sort of thinking the same thing, especially after this chapter xD**

 **Guest:** **Hehehe, we'll see. I mean, I know I rated this M, but I'm still not sure how much I'm going to be detailing their bedroom activities when it gets to that point... I've never really written a lot of smut. I doubt I'll be good at it. Though if enough people want to see it, I may include some in the story.**

 **Youngblooded:** **That was kind of the goal. Sorry Rick, it had to be done. *feels endless remorse * And I have been thinking about this a lot... Your question has made me start looking for an actor, because it would be cool to have a real picture for people to see. The problem is that I didn't have anyone in mind when I created Zeke(that sounds weird xD), so I'm having trouble finding the right person. I also kind of like letting people imagine him for themselves, but I will definitely let you and everyone else know if I find someone.**

 **NoisySunday:** **I have missed replying to your reviews in my absence! Anyways, yeah. I greatly enjoyed writing their conflict last chapter. This one however was much more fluffy, and I really hope you and everyone else liked reading these emotions too. Sometimes I write fluff and I feel like it's just so bad xD. Also, I am eager to reveal Zeke's past. He is very closed off, so that's why it hasn't been discussed much yet. I think it's going to be a slow process, but slowly, more and more light will be shed on what has happened to him until he's not quite so mysterious.**


	9. Friends

**(Zeke's POV)**

After a string of loud, untamed laughter, which was like music to my ears if I was being honest, Carl managed to calm himself enough to fix me with a look of pure amusement. "Oh, really?" he asked dubiously in response to my claim, his eyebrow raised at me.

Walking towards Carl, I stopped right in front of him. He watched me curiously, our eyes locked again despite the curtain of wet, brunette hair that hung down in his face, but he didn't react. "Really," I answered cockily in a murmur as I leaned towards him, my free hand reaching out and slowly taking the hatchet that I had borrowed him from his hand. Shivers ran up my spine as our hands accidentally brushed, but I tried to blame it on the lack of clothing. Moving away from him, I turned back to the water, but I hadn't even made it a few steps in that direction before his next words froze me in my place out of a combination of surprise and something else that made my face burn.

"I'll believe that when I see it," he shot back almost instantly. After getting over my initial shock, I threw a raised-eyebrow glance over my shoulder, unsure how to even respond to that at first. I thought he was flirting at first, but then I realized as the smirk spread across his lips that he was joking, probably just trying to elicit a reaction from me(which I suppose he was successful in this).

My head shook as I scoffed, "Pervert," continuing walking after that. I knelt down on one knee at the edge of the pool, dipping the blades of my hatchets into the water and swishing them around a few times until the blood came off in clouds of light scarlet that slowly got lighter as they dispersed. I laid the twin weapons on the end of the large stone, the rest of Carl and I's stuff still on the other side.

"We should sit for a little while to dry off so that we can get dressed and go back to Michonne. If we get back before it starts getting light out, we should be fine," I suggested offhandedly to myself as much as to Carl. Sitting down on the rock, my hands pressed themselves against it on either side of myself to support me as I leaned back slightly, my legs splayed out in front of my body. A moment later, Carl joined me on the stone, taking the same position that I had, with a small margin of space between our hands. I stared out at the pool in front of us silently, but after a little while something came to my attention.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Carl wasn't looking straight ahead like I was. Instead, he was leaned back a bit further, his head tipped back as well. He was probably staring up at the night sky or something, and I'm sure it was beautiful. I really meant to look for myself, but I found my gaze even more captivated by what it was already focused on.

Carl was slender, his torso lithe and his limbs skinny as well. He hadn't quite filled out as much as I had yet, but he showed the beginning of promising muscle tone. Water droplets dotted his entire body, some of them clinging to their places while others rolled across his alabaster complexion and left water trails in their wake. They caught the moonlight brilliantly, making him practically glow. The way his head was tilted backwards exposed a set of prominent collarbones and caused his Adam's apple to jut out, leaving me watching it intently, fascinated by the slightest movements it gave. This also left me trying not to think about how I wanted to run my tongue along his neck, but there were a lot of things I wanted to do to Carl in this moment that I was trying not to think about. That was just at the start of a long, partially x-rated, list of them.

My eyes briefly caught on a large white blemish on his chest, a scar. I wondered what the story behind it was, but I didn't try to speculate because I couldn't really even tell what made it. "How do you like the view?" Carl's voice nearly stopped my heart in surprise, and I was impressed with myself for not jumping ten feet in the air. I blinked, slowly moving my gaze to his head and expecting him to be looking back at me and smirking at having caught me staring, but when I looked, he was still looking up.

The rising mortification I felt dissipated, and I nearly melted in relief as I realized he was talking about the sky. "Uh, y-yeah. It's cool," I stammered hurriedly, looking up at the sky. It was actually amazing, with the moon full and the sky nearly cloudless. Stars were everywhere.

"Yeah, I figured that I would bring it to your attention since you were too busy staring at me to notice," Carl stated nonchalantly.

Immediately, my head whipped back to stare at Carl again with wide eyes at his words, my mouth opening and closing as I tried to come up with something to say. He still wasn't looking at me, but there was an amused little smile on his face now as he continued to stargaze. After a moment of my inability to speak, he glanced over at me, the smile spreading into a wide grin. "Yeah, just like that," he quipped.

"I wasn't- I mean... I was looking at your scar!" I quickly countered, my hand waving through the air in that direction before resting back at my side. It wasn't a complete lie... It just wasn't the whole truth either. Though regardless, I doubt Carl bought it anyways.

Carl nodded at me incredulously, his eyes filled with amusement. "Oh, yeah. I'm sure. My scar," he responded skeptically as he sat up like me, glancing down at the white mark and touching it lightly, almost pensively.

Glaring at him briefly, my head turned a second later and I just glared out in front of me. "Whatever," I grumbled in annoyance.

"You wanna know how I got it?" he asked after a lapse of silence.

Usually, I didn't ask about anyone's past. I didn't pry, and I smothered any curiosity that I felt about the subject if I could manage it. People were a lot less prone to ask about my own past if I offered them the same courtesy, and even if they did ask, it was easier to brush the questions off if I hadn't been making inquiries of my own. Though however much I denied it, I was curious about how Carl got the scar, and he was even offering the information willingly.

"You don't have to tell me," I answered neutrally, continuing to watch the water in front of me even though I could feel Carl looking at me now.

After giving an annoyed sigh, Carl asked, probably rhetorically, "Anyone ever tell you that you do a shit job of answering questions?"

A chuckle escaped me, and I nodded, almost without realizing it. "If you want to tell me... I'm interested," I hesitantly admitted, shooting him a quick glance.

His lips curled upwards in a smile, and he contentedly said, "Better." Then his gaze fell away from me to look out at the water like I was. He cleared his throat, seeming to think for a minute. I hoped that it wasn't too traumatic of a story, but then again he had been the one to ask if I wanted to hear it so I was thinking it wouldn't be too bad.

The pause lasted for a few moments, but after Carl had apparently collected his thoughts, he began abruptly with, "I got shot." He stopped again after this, but when I looked over at him he didn't seem to be overly upset by this. I think he was more so letting it sink in for me, and possibly trying to recall more details.

"Hey, me too. We should form a club or something," I suggested jokingly, a smirk on my face.

At this, Carl's head hung down for a second, the reaction having me worried that I said something wrong. When he looked back up, there was a small, wistful smile on his face. "Yeah. A club," he repeated quietly, before throwing out a slight laugh that I could easily tell was forced. Then he blinked a few times and shook his head quickly, almost like he was clearing it of whatever thoughts he had been having. He glanced over at me with a smirk on his face. "I'll be club president of course, since I actually got shot instead of _just barely_ getting grazed," he teased.

"What?! It was my idea! And I'm still gonna have a big ass scar!" I protested, looking back and forth from the sealed gash in my side to Carl's face. "Though I suppose yours is a little more... _gnarly,_ so maybe I should let you be president..." I trailed off with a fake thoughtful tone, still unable to stop mocking him for when he used the ridiculous word.

Rolling his eyes, he bumped my arm with his elbow and exclaimed, "Oh, piss off!" He gave me his best scowl, but it was hard to take it seriously when I saw the way his lips were still wanting to curl. "My first order as president is to blacklist you," he declared in a mutter, looking away from me with a sour expression that I could also tell wasn't sincere.

Laughing, I purposefully stared at him and waited for him to look back at me, to which he continued to keep his eyes forward stubbornly. "Okay, so... Who shot you? Why?" I asked inquisitively, trying to bring his attention back to the story to satisfy my own curiosity now.

"It was a hunting accident. Just a stupid accident. I was out in the woods with my dad, and another man named Shane," Carl explained, seeming to swallow at that name. "A deer walked out onto the trail in front of us. It just stood there, not even scared. It was so beautiful..." he continued, his eyes shining now, and he was clearly far away as he recalled the memory. A small smile crept onto his face. I realized one had materialized on mine too as I watched him speak. "It had these huge dark eyes, and velvety antlers. I started to walk towards it, really slow so that it wouldn't spook. I got closer and closer, and I thought I might actually get close enough to touch it and then... It happened. I don't remember much about being shot except being in a lot of pain. I was unconscious for a while, but I know the bullet went through the deer and hit me. It was a farmhand, Otis."

As Carl gave his description of being shot, I sat up more before I even realized it, intently listening now. My fists actually clenched, and I felt myself getting angry at the idea of Carl getting shot, of him being in pain. Even though it was an accident, I would probably have killed Otis. This darker line of thought actually caused me to interrupt the story to ask, "Did your father kill him?" before I could really even think about it.

Now he glanced at me, looking a bit surprised. I couldn't tell if that was because of how invested I was in the story or because of my question itself. "Uh, no. Shane did." He looked away as he said this, back to staring out at the water again. I noted that Carl seemed to get almost uncomfortable whenever he brought up this Shane guy. I wondered about it, but I wasn't going to push the subject, unless it had something to do with Carl being shot that was.

Nodding, I asked, "Right then and there?" unable to stop the questions from coming out of myself now. At least Carl didn't seem to mind.

"No, afterwards," Carl answered, his head shaking as he spoke. "I would probably be dead if my dad or Shane had decided to shoot him right away." He glanced over, catching my puzzled look. "See, Otis lived on the farm of a man named Hershel. After I got shot, I lost a lot of blood," he said, looking down at his scar now and tracing the outline of it thoughtfully with a finger. "There were bullet fragments still inside of me. I needed way more medical attention than my dad or Shane could give, surgery actually." My eyes widened at this, and I started becoming increasingly amazed that Carl was here talking to me right now. It sounded like a miracle he survived.

"Hershel was a doctor- well, a vet. He saved my life," Carl said gratefully, and now his eyes were shining again, except for a very different reason. I could tell Hershel had meant a lot to Carl, and I inferred that he was probably dead now. It actually made me want to reach out and give Carl a hug or something, but honestly comfort was never my thing. Social interaction wasn't even my thing, and I was just getting the hang of it again recently. I knew I still had a long way to go.

"I'm glad that he did," I murmured sincerely, once again not even meaning to. Though I felt I had done something right when Carl looked right at me and smiled. It was sort of a sad smile, with his teeth hidden, and I could tell that the story was taking it out of him emotionally. I suspected it had something to do with bringing up all of the people in the story, most of whom I either assumed or actually knew to be dead. So, I smiled back at him, hoping it helped.

Though the smile faded from my face as I looked away, debating whether or not to ask the next question that had popped up in my head. "So... What happened with Shane and Otis? Did he just do it because Otis shot you or..." I trailed off, unsure of how to finish, and looked back at Carl. His head was still turned to me, but his gaze fell now, a frown taking the place of his previous smile. I quickly added, "You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to," scratching the back of my neck guiltily as I immediately felt bad for prying. I was doing the thing that I hated the most. At the same time, I really did want to know the answer, making me want to punch myself in the face all the more.

Carl's face turned away, looking straight ahead of him again. "Hershel needed special equipment for the surgery. Shane offered to go get it and Otis wanted to make things right, so he went with him. They got what they needed- what _I_ needed... But they got into trouble. There were a lot of walkers, and they weren't gonna get away. So Shane... Shane sacrificed Otis. He shot him and left him for the walkers so that he could get away. And he did. He brought back what Hershel needed, and I survived because of it," Carl told me, in a matter of fact way.

Joining Carl in staring out at the water, I pondered over all of this for a few moments, letting it all sink in. "He did what he had to do," I commented. Feeling Carl's gaze on me again, I looked over to meet it. At first he seemed surprised, but then I couldn't tell what he was thinking, his bright blue eyes unreadable to me. "You two must have been close. Did he tell you what happened? Is that how you know?" I asked.

Carl's head shook, eyes flickering away from mine again. "No, I was just a kid back then. It was a long time ago. Other members of our group had some suspicions, and then he eventually confessed it to Dad."

"What did your dad do?"

"Nothing," he replied, hesitantly at first, a brief pause following before he continued. "He didn't quite agree with what Shane did, but he knew that he did it to save me. Him and Shane were best friends. They were deputies together, before everything happened," he explained, and I knew he meant the apocalypse when he said "everything".

"Your dad was a cop?"

Carl nodded. "He worked for the King County Sheriff's Department. That's my home town."

Absorbing this information, dots started to connect, and I glanced back at where Carl had left his clothes and other belongings. "Is that where you got the hat?" I asked, my eyes on him again.

Again, Carl nodded his head. He sat up like I had and then reached for his hat. He held it out in front of him, regarding the object fondly. "The joke you made earlier, it reminded me of him," he began, catching me off guard and leaving me to wonder what joke he was talking about. "He gave me this after I got shot. He said, _'Since you're in the club, you get to wear the hat.'"_ When Carl recited his father's words, his voice lowered and his accent thickened, presumably to mimic how his father spoke. The change in his tone was almost absentminded, and it was clear to me that Carl was in his head, reliving the memory. I could tell that it was one of his better ones, the younger boy having another wistful smile on his face. His other hand joined the one that was already on the hat, and he pressed it to his chest, almost hugging it for a few seconds. Then he placed it on his head, even though he had damp hair, looking ahead like before.

He did this casually, as if it wasn't strange at all that he wore it while his only other article of clothing at the moment were his underwear. I, on the other hand, was trying not to gape. Despite the grievously inappropriate time, with Carl having just been reminiscing about moments with his deceased father, I couldn't help but feel infinitely more attracted to the boy sitting next to me after he put that hat on. I mean, I had seen him in it before(he was wearing it when I met him after all), but not like _this._ I think if I didn't already have some sort of sheriff kink, Carl caused me to develop one. I wanted to kiss him, to pull off his only other item of clothing so that hat was all he was wearing. I wanted him to wear that hat while I-

 _Zeke! That hat is from his dead father!_

Okay, so I'll be the first to admit that even if I had been a saint, all the thoughts running through my head consisting of Carl and I were sending me straight to Hell. Realizing that I was staring again, I quickly looked away, my face heating up. At least the other boy seemed to be too consumed by his thoughts to notice this time. Clearing my throat quietly, I remembered what he said now that I wasn't so fixated on him. "Your father got shot?" I managed to ask, feeling like an idiot due to the lapse of time between his words and mine.

Thankfully, he didn't notice, still largely in his own head from the looks of it. Nodding instinctively, he answered with, "Yeah. It happened right before. He was in a coma for a while," all the while still staring ahead thoughtfully. Then he seemed to return a bit, glancing at me with a slight curve of the lips. "But you probably don't want to hear about that. I think we've gotten past the whole me getting shot story now," he commented dismissively.

At first, I assumed that it was because he didn't want to talk about all of this stuff from his past anymore. Though as I watched his expression, I realized that he probably kind of liked being able to talk about this with someone, and that he really did just think that I didn't care about hearing it.

 _You_ shouldn't _care about hearing it,_ that coldly pragmatic part of my mind whispered.

Though it wasn't easy, I had been shutting that part of my mind out since I left the house with Carl. I was used to listening to the logical commands; that icy, inhuman part of me was what kept me alive for so long. The ability to act more like a machine than a person kept me alive, locking my emotions, my need for human contact, in a box.

When I met Carl, whether intentionally or unintentionally, one of the first things he did was hit that box with a crowbar. And he had kept at it ever since. He was trying to break it open. Break _me_ open. Maybe it was working.

"It sounds interesting," I replied, logic be damned. "Why don't you tell me about it? And whatever else you want," I continued, wanting to spite the part of me that wanted me to be an emotionless drone in some strange way, but also genuinely wanting to hear more of Carl's past. There was a small risk, given that he might ask about mine, but I could always brush the questions off if that time came. Opening up wasn't an option. Carl may have gotten closer to me, but he wasn't _that_ close.

When he looked at me again, his eyebrows were raised in surprise. "Really?" he asked doubtfully.

My eyes went to the sky, checking the moon's position. It had fallen a little from the last time I had glanced at it, but we still had a few hours before the sun started to rise, if I was giving my best guess. "We have a while before we have to go back. Michonne shouldn't miss us for a couple of hours at least," I began. As I said this, gaze still skyward, an impulse shot from my brain to the arm that was closest to Carl before I could catch it, and slowly, without looking at him at all throughout the process, my hand inched closer to his until it was laying on top of it, covering his extremity.

After a moment, I finally looked at him again to find him staring at me. His cheeks turned a light pink a second after we made eye contact, and he quickly averted his head, tilting it down so that his hat shadowed his face more. "I'm listening," I finished, before focusing my eyes forward, acting as if everything was normal, as if I couldn't feel the cool, smaller hand underneath my own at all.

"Okay, so after Dad got shot..."

* * *

We talked for a long time. Well, Carl talked, and I mostly just listened. Though I supplied commentary when it was appropriate, as well as asking questions at times. He told me so much. About himself, the kinds of things he had gone through since the world ended, and his group from the prison. He was basically recounting his entire post-apocalyptic experience. He told me about how his father found him and his mother at a camp outside Atlanta at a quarry. About the CDC, where there was only one man even trying to come up with a cure before the whole place self-destructed. About his friend Sophia, and how she went missing and died. About Hershel's farm, and how it was practically a paradise until a herd of rotters ran his group off. About Shane, and the way his father put the man down after he went crazy. About finding the prison. About how his mother died giving birth to his baby sister. About the lunatic named the Governor, and the conflict with his town, Woodbury. In fact, I think he told me just about everything, bar how the prison fell.

Somehow, over the course of all of the stories Carl recounted, we had ended up pressed against each other. I don't remember who moved, be it Carl or I, but now our sides were flush with each other. Maybe both of us just instinctively scooted towards the other.

"-and then, Judith threw up everywhere! It splattered over everything! Dad, his bed, the wall, _me._ I swear, it was like projectile vomiting!" Carl continued the amusing story he had been telling me, arms moving animatedly as he spoke. That was what we had been talking about for the last half hour or so, the peaceful, _safe_ life at the prison that ensued once the Governor was gone. He told me about how they started farming, took in more and more people, and even managed to tame some animals. It amazed me, and it almost gave me hope that I, that _we_ (even thinking that was going to take some getting used to), wouldn't have to be out here like this forever.

 _Almost._ The sad truth of it all was, that it didn't matter in the end how much Carl's group had gotten everything together. I didn't know what exactly happened, not yet, but their settlement, their home, fell in the end. Everywhere eventually did. There was no sanctuary anymore, and that fact was what I took sanctuary in now. The outside was my home, plain and simple. It wasn't easy living, but it was better than being lulled into a false sense of security, better than being weakened by the cushy life of a camp with walls that would inevitably fall in the end.

Of course, I didn't mention any of this to Carl, and I even did my best to repress my thoughts that by some, would probably be deemed depressing(I just considered them to be true). "Oh, come on. You're totally exaggerating this!" I exclaimed with a chuckle, giving him a skeptical look.

"I'm not!" he laughed in insistence at first, but after my eyebrows raised even higher, he burst into a fit of giggles and turned his head away for a second to suppress his amusement. When he looked back, he had managed to stifle his laughter, though there was still a large grin on his face. "Okay, okay. There was only a little bit on me. Dad got the brunt of it, but it was still everywhere and it was still nasty!"

More laughter ensued, from both sides. Come to think of it, we had been laughing a surprising amount throughout the night. Had Carl and I shared a laugh prior to this? Sure, but never had things been so fun, so carefree, so _easy_ , with him before now. I couldn't even deny that I was enjoying myself. This was also the first time that I had felt anywhere near being a normal teenager in... Well, in a long time. I couldn't even say how long it had been. The logical part of my mind told me it was exceedingly dangerous.

The part of myself that was laughing along with the boy next to him didn't care.

Soon, after we had both settled, I was staring out at the water contentedly. It didn't take long for me to feel something next to me though. Carl shivered. Or rather, he was shivering, since it seemed to occur every few seconds. I could tell that he was trying to contain it. With a glance, I asked, "You cold?"

Immediately, the smaller boy shook his head. "I'm fine," he answered quickly, without turning his head.

Pointedly staring at him, I waited for Carl to notice. It didn't take long for me to realize that he knew that I was looking, and he was just as purposefully ignoring it, forcing me to speak up. "If you're cold, why don't you just get dressed?" I asked, confused. We had been out of the water for a while now, and I was practically all the way dry, meaning he was too.

"I'm not cold," he said in denial, though not one second later he shivered again.

"Carl," I responded with mild exasperation.

His hat had been concealing his face pretty well, so when he finally glanced at me, I found myself focusing intently on the cerulean orbs locked onto mine without even meaning to, almost like my eyes had missed the vibrant color. "I don't want to get up. I'm comfortable," he stated simply.

Sighing at the stubborn boy next to me, I gave up the half-baked arguments that I had started to create in my head, too distracted by his eyes to say anything in response right away. Once I had reassembled the brain in my head that Carl had turned to mush, I grudgingly sighed, " _Fine."_ Looking over my shoulder to where my stuff was, I reached back and snatched up my coat after a moment of consideration. I held it out to Carl, though with the way he was right next to me, it was practically in his lap. When a few seconds had passed and he still didn't take it, then it was in his lap, because I dropped it there. "You don't have to _get up_ to put that on," I quipped.

For a few seconds he just stared down at it, like it was some foreign object that he didn't understand. Then he spoke up, simply saying, "It's yours," still not moving to put it on.

My eyes rolled, and I patronizingly replied, "Yes, Carl. It is. A very astute observation."

At that, he shot a quick scowl at me before looking back to where my coat rested in his lap. He took it in his hands with a delicate grip and held it out in front of him to inspect it, as if he was afraid the fabric was going to come alive and bite him. The corner of my mouth curled in an amused smirk as I watched him. "It has a big tear in it," he criticized, eyes roaming over the ripped area, the frayed edges stained with my blood.

Realizing that the crimson soaked into the garment probably turned him away from wanting to wear it, I began to reach for it as I said, "Oh, right. You probably don't want to wear my coat with that on it. Here, I'll-" unable to finish as Carl cut me off.

"No!" he practically yelped, pulling it away from my hand. The look I gave him was probably a mixture of surprise and confusion, to which he cleared his throat and quickly tried to recover with, "I mean, I am cold. I'll wear it. It's fine," his face covered with a light blush as he spoke.

After a few moments of me dubiously looking at him with my eyes narrowed, I smirked. "Thought you were _weren't_ cold?" I asked teasingly.

"I lied," he said, in a tone that made it sound like he wanted to say, "Shut up." I leaned away from him for a brief second as he began to put on my coat, so that I wouldn't catch an arm in the face, and after he finished putting it on, both of us were looking down at it to see the results. Given the size advantage that I had on him(which probably had to do with the two years, give or take, that I had on him in age), he was kind of drowning in the article of clothing, but only slightly. He stuck his arms out straight in front of him experimentally and his hands were still hidden in the sleeves, but at least the arms of my coat didn't droop down ridiculously.

"Comfy?" I asked with amusement.

" _No,"_ Carl immediately said with emphasis, rejecting the notion. However, a moment later he continued with, "I'm a little warmer now though," a pause ensuing, "Thanks." He smiled slightly as he said the last word, drawing the coat tighter around him in a sort of a hugging motion.

"You're welcome," I replied, a hint of a smirk on my face. Part of me felt like Carl wanted to wear my coat more so because it was _my coat_ than because he was cold, but I didn't want to go making assumptions. Though I also couldn't deny(not for lack of trying, however) that I liked the idea of Carl wearing my coat almost as much as I imagined he liked it, in a silly, teenage boy way. Like I had laid claim to him, despite there not being any competition in the first place. Of course, I told myself that it wasn't really like that.

I knew that the younger boy was growing fond of me. The extent of his feelings, I didn't know, but I could see now that he at least felt a similar physical attraction to me like I did to him. With the way he was opening up, it seemed he was also starting to view me as a friend as well. I hadn't had a friend in a long time.

As I thought about it, I realized I was becoming partial to him as well. Despite the occasional volatile argument, Carl's company was a nice change. Michonne's too, even though we didn't talk as much. At least my conversations with the woman didn't have the overhanging threat of erupting like Mount Vesuvius as my talks with Carl sometimes did. Though despite how much I was enjoying my new companions(strange word choice maybe, but friends felt like too much), I was still guarded. I always was, and I'm pretty sure that I couldn't drop my shields if I tried. Though there were a few times recently that I had found myself trying anyways.

In fact, I had almost kissed Carl before. I was going to do it, throwing all logic and reason out the window for those few moments, but then that small group of rotters interrupted us. Even though I had really wanted the contact, I was glad for the intrusion. It brought me back to my senses.

Carl was young. Not that much younger than me, but when taking into account that he was likely only thirteen(I couldn't say for sure, only knowing his age and not his birthday) when the apocalypse began, it was safe to say that he probably didn't know much about relationships. It wasn't as if I was the love guru either(on the contrary both my previous relationships had ended... badly, to put it lightly), but I was a bit more mature, biologically speaking, and had some experience with relationships. If Carl and I had kissed, it would have only complicated things. I may enjoy being around him, but I didn't want him that attached to me.

Speaking of the other boy, he had gone silent. I wasn't talking either, but that wasn't too much of a change, considering I had been relatively quiet ever since Carl started telling me those stories and I had retreated even more into my thoughts now. Carl had apparently done the same. Glancing over at him, I saw that his gaze was in his lap again, fingernails absentmindedly picking at the surface of the rock.

Maybe he was done telling stories now. However much I liked hearing them, that was okay with me since he had already told me way more than I ever expected to hear from him. Besides, he may have ran out of happy little anecdotes about life at the prison to talk about, and he didn't need to relive any more despair-filled memories, especially not if they were fresh ones.

Though I was wrong, because out of the silence came, "The nightmares I have-" He stopped, and when I looked over at him he appeared to be internally scolding himself, eyes screwed tightly shut for a moment before he reopened them and corrected himself with, "The nightmare I had earlier I mean... it was about my dad. And how he died."

"Carl," I murmured gently, gaze focused on him. Nearly his entire face was obscured by the shadow of his hat now, and I dipped my head to try and get him to look at me. It didn't work.

"The night before we met-"

"You don't have to," I interrupted, my tone still soft.

"-I shot him in the head," Carl finished, his tone largely emotionless, though I knew that wasn't actually how he felt.

His hands were laid out in front of him, resting on his flattened knees. My hand went to his again, though this time it was more than just an impulse. I carefully rested it there, and said, "You didn't murder him," as sincerely as if I had been there myself.

Carl did look at me at that, eyes narrowed intensely in a glare. "How can you say that?" he asked with hostility, yanking his hand away from mine. "You don't know!" he hissed, growing increasingly more furious as the seconds passed. He leaned away from me in a recoiling way, but he didn't make any moves to get up like I thought he might.

"I've seen murderers, Carl." _I am a murderer._ "You're not one of them," I answered, the words coming out as a statement once again.

The expression on the other boy's face was that wanting to punch me look again. I got that a lot from him, but this was almost more feral. He looked like he was going to snarl at me any minute now, like a angry tiger right before it tears its prey's throat out. "You're wrong. You think just because I'm younger than you that I haven't had to kill anyone?! I have! I'm a killer, just like everyone else who's made it this long. You're an idiot if you really believed that I wasn't," he growled in true angry tiger-like fashion.

"You are a killer," I began, and as soon as these words left my mouth, Carl's face turned to one of almost pure bewilderment, only a hint of anger remaining. He looked like he wanted to speak but couldn't find any words. Instead, he just stared at me. "But not a murderer," I stated in a matter-of-fact manner.

He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn't give him the chance, quickly adding, "There is a difference."

Carl seemed at a loss for words, and I wasn't surprised that all he could manage was, "How?" his tone confused and a bit upset.

"Murderers want to kill. They _choose_ to. And I can't imagine you pulling the trigger unless you _had_ to. You're not cold-blooded, Carl," I answered as best as I could, surprised at how well I articulated myself.

Carl's eyes fell down to his lap, and he seemed to consider my words. After a few moments, he said, "I didn't kill my dad. He..." a sigh passed between his lips, "he was already gone." The fire in the other boy's eyes was gone, along with the fury that had been on his face. I gradually felt the pressure return at my side as he went back to his previous position, no longer poised as if he was going to move away from me.

His words stunned me a bit. I knew what he meant. "Then why did you fight with me about it if you really didn't kill him?" I asked, somewhere between aggravated and bemused.

Carl watched me for a few moments, probably choosing his next words. "You just... said that I didn't do it. And you _didn't_ know. But you said it like you did. Like you thought I couldn't kill or something," he explained.

"That wasn't it," I responded immediately. "I just knew that if you killed him, it was because you had to do it."

"Well, I know that _now,"_ he muttered exasperatedly. As he sighed again, I could tell there was something else he wanted to say, something that he was debating with himself about whether or not he wanted to divulge. "But... You didn't _know_ any of that stuff about me. You don't know me, Zeke," he said stubbornly.

Glancing at him, I simply replied, "I think I'm starting to get the picture."

Carl's head sharply turned so that he could look at me, the brim of his hat brushing my nose. Our eyes locked again, and the tension was almost palpable it hung so thick in the air. We did that thing again, both of our eyes flickering downwards to each other's lips briefly. "You can think that..." Carl trailed off, in what was practically a whisper.

Realizing that our faces were drifting towards each other in a socially unacceptable way, I broke the eye contact to stare straight out at the water. The butterflies got restless in my stomach, fluttering about so wildly that I began to think there was a hurricane going on in there. I was starting to think that I should bring up the subject of us leaving, before I did something that I would regret later.

"I don't know you," Carl said, after a few moments of silence had passed. I could feel him watching me expectantly now.

Not looking at him, I dismissively replied, "You know enough."

"Enough?" Carl said incredulously. "I hardly know anything! I can probably count the things I really know about you on my fingers, probably on one hand!" he exclaimed. Then, he proceeded to do so, of course.

"Hmm," he hummed exaggeratedly as a thinking noise. "Let's see... Things I know about Zeke," he began, and even though I still wasn't looking at him I saw his hand held out in front of him. "Zeke can cut hair," he stated(I was actually somewhere between impressed and flattered that he had remembered that one), sticking his thumb out as he spoke. "Zeke is good at killing walkers." His index finger counted the next fact. "Zeke is antisocial." At this, I shot him an annoyed look, but it wasn't quite a glare. I was actually mildly enjoying this, mostly because I liked the sound of my name passing between Carl's lips. "Zeke isn't so bad... all the time."

With his last "fact", I scoffed, glancing over at Carl with an amused smirk. "Stop," I chuckled, trying not to blush. "Don't even pretend to be sweet. Flattery will get you nowhere."

Carl smirked back at me in a way that undoubtedly made me fail in my attempts to not blush. "Damn, I thought that plan was pretty polished," he said, tone filled with mock disappointment. "But seriously, I know like _nothing_ about you!" he continued persistently.

"You know more than the four things you said!" I shot back.

"Maybe a few more things, but that's it. I don't know about your family, about what it's been like for you since everything ended... I don't even know stupid things, like what brand of orange juice you used to drink in the morning!" Carl ranted, his arms waving as he spoke.

Fixing him with a look somewhere between curious and incredulous, I confusedly replied, "I was really more of an apple juice person, but I think I missed the bit where pre-apocalyptic breakfast drinks had anything to do with the conversation..."

The other boy glared in frustration, and I held my hands up in surrender. Eventually, the expression faded from his face, and he just looked tired as his gaze dropped from me. "It's not about the juice. I just... Never mind," he sighed, shaking his head a bit.

"What is it?" I asked, unable to drop it now. My eyes locked on to him.

"It's stupid."

"Just tell me."

"It doesn't matter."

" _Carl,"_ I repeated, with emphasis this time. He still wasn't looking at me, so I nudged him lightly with my shoulder.

After a moment, he blurted out, "I just wanna know you! Okay? I want to know actual things about you. I li-" cutting himself off, but the one syllable he got out left me wondering what he was going to say. "You're with me and Michonne now, but it almost doesn't feel that way. Right now, you're more like the stranger who's just sharing a house with us." He glanced over at me hesitantly, probably wanting to gauge my reaction to his words.

It made sense why Carl felt that way. Despite my protests, he wasn't wrong when he said he didn't know much about me. He knew next to nothing. "It felt good to say all of that stuff I told you. I mean, I don't usually like talking about things that happened... before. But you actually listened, and maybe that's why it all just sort of tumbled out. I don't know, I guess it was too much for me to expect something from you. All I'm saying is that I would listen too. If you wanted to talk about anything," Carl continued, watching me now. His large blue eyes were filled with curiosity, curiosity about _me._ It was strange to think about it that way, but it was the truth. Carl was a very inquisitive person in general, so it was only a little bit surprising that he wanted to know more about me. The way he was asking now brought me back to when I first met him. He was filled with questions then, and I suppose much hadn't changed.

"Is that why you told me all of that stuff? So that I would spill my guts to you?" I asked, my eyes narrowing.

The other boy raised an eyebrow at me, something undecipherable flashing in his eyes. "You don't trust me very much, do you?" he asked, apparently in a rhetorical fashion, because he continued without giving me time to answer. "I told you that stuff because that's what people do when they're getting to know each other. I told you because... _I_ was starting to trust _you_ , Zeke. Guess that was pretty stupid of me, huh?" Once again, this was probably rhetorical, since he stood up after he said it and walked away.

 _Yes it was,_ the other side of me taunted, but I ignored it again.

"Carl..." I began, standing up as well. He had walked off somewhere behind me, so my eyes hadn't followed him. When I turned, I saw him facing my direction but not looking at me, gaze instead looking downwards at his pile of clothes. He took off his hat and set it down by the other articles, before shaking off my coat and tossing it over by my things a lot more carelessly. This left him exposed once again, and it left me trying not to rake my eyes over him the way a predator does when eying its prey.

 _Focus, Zeke,_ I told myself silently. _This is not check-out-the-cute-boy time, this is say-something-the-cute-boy-is-mad-at-you time._

The formerly mentioned boy leaned over to extract his jeans from the pile of clothes, shaking them out of the twisted heap they were in. "I-" I started, about to say that I was sorry, but I stopped myself on the account of it simply not being true. I liked Carl, but trust was a whole different beast. Trust issues kept people alive nowadays, they had kept _me_ alive. I wasn't about to apologize. Instead, I substituted, "I don't like to talk about the things that happened in the past," for my apology. At least that was the truth. "I put it behind me... it needs to stay there."

Carl stepped into his jeans and pulled them up, glancing at me afterwards. He frowned, looking back down to do the button and zipper of his jeans. "The only way to put something behind you is to face it. If you had done that, you wouldn't be hiding from whatever happened," Carl said, as if he had me all figured out. I tried not to look too surprised, but in reality I was stunned. He looked back up at me, piercing blue eyes slicing into mine. "You're scared."

My hands balled up into fists at his last words, and I felt my blood start to heat up, heat up until it bubbled, until it _boiled._ " _Fuck you_. You're right, you _don't_ know me. You want something to add to your list?" I asked, hostility clear in my tone. I walked closer to him, but instead of backing up like I thought he might, he just met my glare with a defiant, fearless stare. We were sharing the same space again, standing close enough to each other that it almost looked like he was breathing the same air in that I was breathing out. My hand darted out and snatched his wrist, pulling his arm away from him so that his hand was on display in between us. At first, he tried to pull away, but it was probably the initial surprise of me grabbing him that really caused the reaction. He stopped after a second, maybe after realizing that I was stronger than him.

The hand that wasn't holding his wrist came up and covered the hand I was holding hostage. Carl's gaze hadn't moved from mine, and it only briefly flickered to his hand when I started to force his fingers away from his palm, in a parody of his earlier counting. The same four of them that represented the "four things" he knew about me. "I'm not afraid of _anything,_ " I whispered, only it was more like a low growl, and with that, I stuck out his fifth finger.

It was only then that I truly realized how close we were yet again. Our faces were definitely not an appropriate distance away from each other, not for... _acquaintances_ like we were. They were too close. Our lips were too close. _He_ was too close, but at the same time I couldn't push him away, couldn't move away myself, and I still had yet to release his hand. Breathing suddenly became harder, suddenly became impossible, the air catching in my throat like it was a foreign substance. We stared again, and I found myself consumed, drowning in two oceans of cerulean that swirled around me and pulled me in with their tides. My blood was certainly boiling now, but it wasn't with rage anymore.

We were closer now, closer than I remember giving my body permission to be, and I wasn't looking in his eyes because I was staring at his lips. They were inches away from mine, and we both started breathing in an instant, exchanging air again. Now it was the opposite of impossible breathing, and it became too possible, like we had both remembered how lungs worked at the same time. The only reason I knew he was giving off the same quick, shallow breaths that I was, was because I could feel them, every rush of air from his lips hitting mine. "You're afraid of this," he murmured, so quietly that I might have wondered if I imagined it, had I not watched his mouth move. His full, soft-looking lips danced as he spoke, and they were inviting me in closer, unbelievably closer. Movement from our linked hands momentarily distracted me from Carl's mouth(which was probably a good thing), and when I looked down, he had shifted his hand in the limp grasp of mine. He coaxed my hand into opening up, pressing his against it so they spread open, the palms and fingers lined up like we were comparing hand sizes. Mine was larger, but this was more of an afterthought than anything, as I knew this wasn't what he was doing.

"'Fraid o' me," Carl mumbled, but it wasn't the kind of mumble spoken out of a lack of confidence. No, his voice was brimming with confidence; it was cocky despite the hushed quality of it. His fingers slipped into the spaces in between mine, and he squeezed. Tentatively, my fingers came down too, and then they were squeezing as well.

We had never held hands like this before. There were those couple occasions before now, but that was different. Our hands had clasped together, but that had been it. It wasn't like this, with our fingers interlocked in such a strangely intimate way. We shouldn't be holding hands like this, shouldn't be holding hands _at all._ Though I couldn't deny that if I was an _extremely sappy bastard_ \- Well, I might say...

I might say that it felt really right, in a skin electrifying, chest exploding, kind of way.

Hypothetically, of course, since I am _not_ an _extremely sappy bastard._

My other hand was still wrapped loosely around the wrist of the hand that I was holding, but Carl made no move to shake it. Instead, he just rested his free hand on top of it lightly. Remembering that I still had to reply, because _no,_ I was _not_ afraid of Carl in any way shape or form, I breathed, "No," because that was all I could manage. Which, I'm not going to lie, I knew was a weak reply as the single word left my mouth, and I couldn't even make _myself_ believe it.

Carl obviously didn't believe it either, low, husky laughs leaving him at my reply. He shook his head, coy smile on his face as his eyes still admired our hands. Until he glanced up at me, blue orbs peering from underneath his eyelashes in a way that made me want to faint and fall on top of him. Really, it was just in a way that made me want to _get_ on top of him.

"For all of your evasiveness, you couldn't come up with a better reply than _that?"_ he teased, brow raising at me with amusement. He didn't give me time to answer. "Zeke, I know I'm not the only one. I'm not stupid. I know you feel... _this_ too. I-I like you," he confessed nervously, averting his eyes as he spoke the words.

My mouth moved faster than my brain, for the thousandth time of the night. I really needed to get it under control. "I like you too," I rasped back, my tone as uncertain as his. Immediately, I was kicking myself after the words surpassed the control center of my brain and flew from in between my lips like spooked birds.

 _I like you too? I like you too?! Are you fucking kidding me?! Are you disabled? Did you hit your head? Fucking- I like you too. You better take that back._

Regret struck me one hundred times harder at the way Carl's face brightened in response to my words. The smile he flashed at me hurt. "Then there's nothin' for us to be scared of..." he trailed off, leaning in the slightest bit more, but we were already so close that even that small shift cut the distance between our lips in half. His eyes closed, but he didn't attempt to close the gap. He was waiting for me to do it, perhaps having lost some of his earlier bravado.

Everything disappeared except Carl and I once my eyes closed, and I fully intended to press my lips to his. My head tipped forward, and the gap between us then ceased to exist.

For a moment, anyways. At the last possible second, my aim shifted in a final act of hesitation. Instead of my lips meeting his, they lightly pressed against the corner of his mouth, on his cheek. They only stayed for an instant, and then I was pulling back, retreating. Practically fleeing. I extracted my hands from his, and thankfully I avoided his stare enough so that I only had to see a moment of the wide eyes, the flash of disappointment.

Turning away from Carl, I went to my clothes and started to get dressed. With my back still facing him, I repeated, "I like you too," in a tone that I forced into being upbeat. Throwing a half-smile at him over my shoulder, I finished with the question, "We can be friends, right?" I didn't hear a reply as I got dressed. Once I had collected everything of mine, hanging the sheathes for my hatchets in their rightful place on my body and grabbing the twin blades themselves to slip into the sheathes, I faced Carl, the forced smile still strong on my face. I hoped it was convincing. "Carl?"

He was hiding from me again, fully clothed as well, with the hat back on his head. It shadowed his face, so all I could make out was a frown on his lips for the briefest moment, until he forced a smile too. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. Friends," he replied, his voice tight with an attempt at happiness that clearly was even more forced than his smile. What I said was obviously not what he had wanted to hear.

Nodding, I allowed the smile to slip off of my face as I glanced up at the sky. The sun was starting to rise. "We should get back soon," I suggested.

Carl said nothing, giving a curt nod and walking towards the trail that we had taken to get here.

* * *

Soon enough, we were back at the house. The window that we had climbed out of was still open a crack, just like we left it, and Carl headed directly for it with fast, purposeful strides, like he couldn't stand being out here any longer. He slipped his fingers into the little open space, sliding the window back up in a louder manner than I would've liked, considering we were supposed to be slipping under Michonne's radar, but I resisted the urge to comment on it. Carl was already fuming(I could tell, despite his attempts to hide it. I could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears.), and I didn't want to risk provoking him further.

The walk back had been silent. Carl hadn't even looked at me once. A great start to our friendship. Though I think that's why he internalized all of his anger instead of unleashing it on me like a Dragon Ball Z-style Kamehameha, because he was willing to try this being friends thing.

Of course, I could be wrong, and he was just waiting to strike when I least expected it.

Images of death by Carl aside, I watched him climb in the window, which he also did with significantly less finesse than one should when trying to be sneaky, before it was my turn. On our way out earlier, when we had been doing the opposite and climbing out the window, Carl had gone first and then insisted on helping me because of my ankle. When he didn't do the same now, I wasn't surprised, and expected it was just due to his frustration in response to my rejection earlier. Though I knew that wasn't the case when I caught a glimpse of him as I hauled myself over the window sill. He was staring at something that I wasn't going to look at until I was fully inside, his eyes wide with a mixture of what looked like surprise and mild dread. Like the kind of dread a teenager would feel when getting caught sneaking in late-

Michonne. She was standing near the base of the stairs, looking intimidating(though she always looked a bit intimidating to me). I couldn't help but notice that she was wearing her sword, and I tried not to swallow nervously as I found my balance next to Carl after I finished climbing through the window. The first thought that crossed my mind was that I definitely lied to the other boy earlier, and if there was one thing I was afraid of, it was Michonne. The second thought that crossed my mind was that jumping back out the window might not be a bad idea.

"Where the hell were you?!" she asked, no attempt made to conceal her fury. I seriously started to consider the whole jumping out the window idea when she began walking towards us at a brisk pace, especially because I _heard_ her footsteps, which were usually silent in her ninja style(after being around Michonne for nearly two weeks now, I decided that the ninja theory was basically truth). Though it became clear that her current target was Carl, so my feet stayed rooted to the floor. For now.

The angry woman's hand gripped Carl's shoulder, her other one cupping his chin. She leaned in to look at him underneath his hat, turning his head to one side and then the other as she inspected him in an almost frantic, motherly way. I almost found it amusing, only I knew I likely was going to get a lot worse than the worried-parent treatment that Carl was getting. He opened his mouth, but Michonne spoke again before he could, releasing him and resting her hands on her hips. "Well?! What were you doing?! What were you _thinking?!"_ she admonished impatiently, her voice raising as her anger built. Her dark eyes looked like they were spear-fishing for Carl's soul.

The overwhelmed expression on Carl's face as he scrambled to come up with a reply, stuttering and stammering unintelligible sounds, caused me to go against my survival instinct. "I was up when Carl woke up to go to the bathroom. I couldn't sleep, asked Carl if he wanted to go for a walk," I interjected quickly, deciding if I was going to commit suicide by Michonne, it was best not to drag out my demise.

Both of their heads abruptly turned in my direction. Carl looking surprised first, and then annoyed, which I didn't have time to speculate on as I was too busy staring into the face of death- I mean, Michonne, who gave me the most mistrustful glare.

I began to regret my decision to try and come to Carl's aid. The window idea was sounding very good, once again.

"A _walk,_ " she repeated, in a way that conveyed to me that a walk was _not_ what she thought we had been doing. But wait... What _did_ she think we had been doing?! The walk wasn't even the part that I lied about! I just told her a little white lie to spare Carl's dignity, which at this point I was also starting to regret. Her gaze scrutinized me first, then Carl, then back to me again and rinse and repeat. She continued the cycle, her narrowed eyes making me sweat each time they roamed over me.

"Yeah. Yeah, we just went for a walk," Carl offered, solidifying my statement now that he had recovered. "I'm sorry that we slipped out without telling you, but we just didn't want to wa-"

"You were gone over an hour," Michonne interrupted. We were gone a lot longer than that, but I wasn't about to divulge that information. "I thought you might have just went for a walk or something, so that's why I waited as long as I did after I woke up and found you both gone. Your weapons weren't here, Carl, your hat wasn't, so I wasn't too worried until you didn't come back for so long. I was just about to come look for you when you climbed back in through the window." At least that explained why she was wearing her sword.

"Michonne, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to scare-" he tried to apologize again, only Michonne apparently wasn't having any of it.

"What were you really doing?" she asked, her question slicing Carl's apology in half, her words as effective as the sword on her back. Though she wasn't looking at Carl. Her gaze was locked on me now.

Unsure of what to say to make Michonne stop looking at me like I was the neighborhood drug-dealer corrupting her little boy, I stayed silent. Carl, however, did not. He began to get visibly frustrated. "We already told you-" he started, but Michonne really wasn't about to listen to anything Carl said, I guess.

"Carl, go upstairs. To your room," she interjected, her voice sounding scary in that motherly way, and it was even more terrifying to me since even though she was talking to him, she hadn't taken her eyes off of me. I was surprised, since this was the most like a parent I had seen Michonne act. Usually she just acted more like Carl's friend, but that was certainly not the case tonight. If the prospect of facing the woman's wrath by myself wasn't so daunting, I would find the way she was mothering Carl so much laughable. Though I definitely could not laugh at anything now.

If the look on Carl's face wasn't an indication of how much he did not appreciate being ordered around like a child, I don't know what was. "What? No, I'm not-" he began, only to stop again for the thousandth time. It wasn't because of any words though. This time, Michonne only needed a look to silence the younger teenager.

"Go. To. Your. Room. Zeke and I need to have a chat," she said, still in that scarily calm tone that mothers used when they were particularly displeased. Her gaze was back on me again, and I felt like an ant under a magnifying glass. I could feel myself about to burst into flames, and it didn't help that I was unable to look away from her piercing eyes. In my peripheral, I caught Carl glancing between us, still not having moved yet. "Now, Carl," she continued without looking at the boy she was speaking to.

With that, he slowly started to shuffle towards the staircase, watching us the entire way as if he was anticipating that we were about to try to kill each other again like when we first met. Of course, now it was more likely that Michonne would just slice me to ribbons if that were to actually happen. The staring match continued until Carl's steps had faded up the steps and I heard the sound of his door closing. There were a few seconds of complete, paralyzing silence, and then Michonne finally spoke to me.

"That's better. Now, I know that you've been lying to me. So I'm going to ask you one last time, give you a chance to tell the truth. What were you doing with Carl?" Her words were still calm, but as they left her she drifted closer to me slowly. The footsteps were sauntering, yet there wasn't much distance between us in the first place. Michonne was moving at the pace of a disinterested walker, but it still seemed way too fast to me. I swallowed nervously, hoping after the fact that she hadn't seen it.

The nature of her question was different this time, and once I had put aside my fear, I noticed it. What had _I_ been doing with Carl. That's what this was about? She thought I had done something to Carl? But what? She had just looked him over; did she see an injury or something that she thought I gave to him? No, that wasn't really possible. I had just seen... well, basically all of Carl, save for what was concealed in his underwear, which I realized as soon as I thought about that region of the other boy's body that I couldn't have chosen a worse time to bring _that_ to the forefront of my mind. Good thing Michonne was closing in on me, because otherwise a certain appendage of mine may have woken up and that was the last thing I needed. Though right now it was far too scared for that, much like the rest of my body.

As those thoughts crossed my mind, dots started to connect about Michonne's suspicion. However, it wasn't quite processing, and I wasn't sure of her thoughts anyways. Once again, I simply answered her question with, "I was walking with him," managing to keep my voice as even as hers.

Michonne was right in front of me now. And I mean _right in front of me._ Her nose was not even an inch away from my forehead. I think she expected me to step back, and it honestly took all of my willpower not to. Though I was stubborn, and I didn't want to show her that I was afraid. So as she continued to stare me down in a serious invasion of my personal space bubble, I stared right back at her. "Okay. You go anywhere specific on this _walk?"_ she continued, emphasizing the word with a tone that conveyed that she still didn't believe me.

In a spontaneous display of confidence and probably stupidity, fueled by annoyance at Michonne's prodding, I brashly asked, "What are you getting at?" my tone coming out more irritated than I intended it to be. Immediately after this came out of my mouth, the woman's eyes flashed with renewed fury and I regretted my words and wanted to cower and beg for my life. Somehow I didn't, instead remaining frozen where I was. Now that I had already pissed her off more, I might as well get an answer to my question. Besides, all my fear of Michonne aside, I really was sick of her vagueness. If she didn't believe Carl and I, she might as well just come out and say it.

"What I'm _getting at_ ," Michonne nearly hissed my own words back at me, "is that I think you and Carl weren't just out for a stroll. Do you think I'm stupid?" My mouth opened to answer her question, but it was a rhetorical one apparently. She continued before any sound even came out of me. "I've seen the way he looks at you, the way _you_ look at him. You even told me-"

"I feel _nothing_ for him, and that's what I told you!" I snapped back, cutting her off, my tone going from annoyed to frustrated. Mental snapshots of Carl and I's earlier adventure flashed through my mind, along with the emotions that came with them, contradicting what I had just told Michonne, but I ignored the images. Instead, I repeated my words silently, like a mantra.

 _I feel nothing for him. I feel nothing for him. I feel nothing for him!_

Michonne looked at me skeptically, but she didn't argue. "You told me that Carl is _cute,"_ she stated, stressing the word in a way that made me wince at the memory of using it. Another thing I regretted, and it wasn't just the word itself that I shouldn't have used. I shouldn't have admitted that to Michonne in the first place, regardless of word choice. "Obviously that means you're physically attracted to him, so you don't have to _feel anything_ for something to happen. Carl's young and impressionable, and I think he might be more fond of you than he's letting on. You're both teenage boys, and I just need to make sure that-"

My head shook as I scoffed, "I don't have to stand here and listen to this _bullshit_ ," in interruption. The irritation I felt at Michonne's implications overruled the fear I felt of the woman herself as I spoke, and I started to step around her. Only she didn't let that happen, and suddenly all of the fear came rushing back as she suddenly came at me, pushing me back and slamming me against the wall with just enough force to be stunning but at the same time not injure me.

Michonne's forearm was like a bar pressing into my collarbones and holding me tightly in place, and I'm pretty sure I was just staring at her with wide, scared eyes. My reflexes almost kicked in, but I stopped them just in time before I did something stupid like attack her. I'd only do that if I thought I was in real danger, and despite how afraid of Michonne I may have been, I doubted that she would actually hurt me. Not that attacking her would help me anyways, because I was pretty sure it would just end with me getting my ass kicked.

"Actually, you do. Before I found you and Carl, you saved his life, and I appreciate that more than you can possibly know. But that doesn't mean I would ever let you take advantage of that, of _him._ He is _two years_ younger than you, and you know what? He really does like you. I can see it. I know that boy very well. But... I don't know you. Definitely not enough to trust you yet. You're older than him, and you swooped in and saved him when he didn't have anybody else. Hell, he looks at you like he wants to take off your shirt again when he thinks nobody is paying attention," Michonne began seriously.

"Again?" I interjected, puzzled.

Michonne ignored my question, continuing. "I bet it wouldn't take much for you to convince him to do... things. But he's not some toy for you to use, and he's too young to be screwing around with you in the woods even if you two were together. That's why you better tell me what exactly happened out there tonight," she demanded, her voice threatening and her eyes deadly.

It felt like there was lead in my throat as I nervously swallowed again, unable to look away from those piercing eyes. "I was telling the truth, I swear. Nothing happened," I replied submissively, hoping to placate the protective woman. The failure of my efforts could be felt as her arm pushed against me harder and her face became enraged at the prospect of my assumed lie. She opened her mouth to speak, but I beat her to it, insisting, "No, Michonne! Really. We didn't do anything like that. I know how Carl feels about me, but I told him I just wanted to be friends. I wouldn't use him; that's not who I am."

Michonne settled somewhat, her arm no longer pressing into me with bruising force. Her eyes however were still mistrustful as she stared into mine, into me. She didn't move for what felt like hours, just looking. For what, I wasn't sure. I stayed completely still as well, nearly too scared to breathe.

After what felt like a week had passed, the woman's expression suddenly softened. If I wasn't mistaken that might even be guilt as she moved away from me, taking about three or four steps back. Instinctively, my hand came up to where her arm dug into me and rubbed at the area a few times, and I caught her eyes following the movement. It made the guilt in them worse, which, although that wasn't really my intention, I wasn't sorry about.

She looked a bit overwhelmed, which surprised me. For the short time I had known her, I hadn't seen Michonne be anything but strong. Only now, her fingers were pressing into the space between her eyes, eyes screwed shut as she she rubbed circles into her forehead as if she might have a migraine. "I'm sorry. I... I believe you," she murmured apologetically, hand coming away from her forehead along with her eyes reopening to focus on me. There was no more anger or mistrust in them now. "It's just-" she broke off in a sigh, gaze downcast as she shook her head a few times.

Staying silent, I simply watched her impassively, no longer afraid. Back to showing no emotion, though I was a bit relieved that I survived. "Carl and I lost a lot of friends- I mean. No. Not friends. _Family._ At the place we were at before-"

"The prison," I blurted factually, without really thinking about it. Michonne glanced up at me at this statement, though she didn't seem perturbed. If anything she was just a bit shocked, nodding in conformation.

"Carl told you?" she asked.

Getting the feeling that this conversation was going to be a while, I leaned back against the wall as I nodded, crossing my arms in front of me. "He didn't tell me about the end, but he told me about the beginning. About the life you had before, and the friends you're talking about." Locking eyes with her, I murmured as respectfully as possible, "And I am truly sorry for what you both lost."

Michonne gave a slight, sorrowful smile in response. "Me too," she practically whispered, her gaze falling away from me again. "Carl's all that I have left. I know I overreacted with you two, but when he was gone for so long, bad things started to run through my mind. When you got back and he was okay... I guess the worry just turned to anger. I really did want to make sure you two weren't doing anything, but I shouldn't have lost it like that. But I... I don't know how to _do this._ I've never raised a teenager before, and certainly not in the fucking apocalypse," she gave a quiet chuckle at this, the kind of laugh that someone gives when they really want to cry instead.

"And Carl's dad... he was a good man. One of the best," she continued, sounding like she was choking up at the mention of the man. She cleared her throat before going on. "I need to try to take care of his son the same way he would've," she said with determination. At this point, it was almost like she wasn't talking to me anymore. More like she was just venting all of this or reminding herself. "But I'm not Carl's dad. I'm not his _mom._ I don't know if I can do what's best for him like they could..." she trailed off, shaking her head quickly. Her attention seemed to fully return to me, like she was just realizing I was present for all of that. "Anyways, I just wanted you to understand, I guess. You don't seem like a bad guy, and I shouldn't have treated you like one."

Waving my hand dismissively, I immediately replied with, "Don't worry about that. If you already trusted me, then you wouldn't be doing your best to take care of Carl. You were just doing what you had to, I get it. Since it's out in the open that you don't trust me though, I have to be honest... I'm still not entirely sure you aren't going to kill me." My tone turned wry at the end, and I almost smirked at Michonne.

The woman's lips twitched in the same way in response, and she said, "I don't see that happening. On the other hand, if you hurt Carl, I will have to kill you," her voice holding the dry, yet joking quality that mine had. She offered me a small, friendly smile, and I nearly returned it.

"Noted," I remarked with amusement, pushing off the wall and turning to the open window, looking out of it. The sun was almost high in the sky now, its rays already cast across the landscape and into the house, lighting it up. "So, what's our plan now?" I asked, looking back to Michonne after the question left me. "You and Carl haven't really told me shit, but I pick up on your conversations sometimes. I know the supplies around here are running dry. Can't say I'm surprised, considering how long we've stayed here. We should move on soon," I suggested.

Michonne appeared to contemplate what I said for a few moments, until her gaze landed on my ankle. "I found your compression wrap upstairs. You shouldn't have taken it off," she admonished, though her voice wasn't too harsh.

"I'm _fine,_ " I muttered. "My ankle is fine. I'd be ready to leave today, _right now_ if you wanted." It wasn't an exaggeration. Though my ankle was a bit sore from all of the walking with Carl, I could manage. It was basically back to being fully functional, and I was ready to move on anyways. As nice as the house was, it wasn't good to stay in one place for so long.

Another pause ensued as Michonne considered my words. "How is your gunshot feeling?" she asked after a few moments had passed. Her eyes were on me, looking me up and down, and I could tell she was trying to assess my overall condition. I suppose it made sense that I was the reason we hadn't moved on yet, which once again made me feel like a burden. But that wasn't me, and I wasn't going to let myself be spoon-fed by Carl and Michonne anymore.

Locking eyes with her, I said seriously, "I told you I'm fine."

Michonne stared back at me impassively, silent at first. Slowly, she began to nod. "Okay. You keep taking your antibiotics, and that infection shouldn't come back. We can go today. I should go check in with Carl, let him know the plans."

"And corroborate my story?" I asked with slight amusement, knowing that despite saying she didn't think I was a bad guy, that she wasn't just going to take my word that nothing happened. She would ask Carl too. Her mouth opened, probably to protest, but I held up my hand to silently cut her off. "It's okay," I assured with a small laugh. "Like I said, you gotta do what you gotta do. While you do that, I'm gonna walk the perimeter. Take care of any rotters out there," I stated, turning to the open window and beginning to climb back out.

As I swung my first leg out the window, Michonne spoke again. "You don't have to do that," she quickly said, clearly in an attempt to stop me. My head turned back to her as I froze where I was, now straddling the window sill.

"Nah, I do. It's for my peace of mind. Trust me, I really am fine. Rotters aren't hard to kill, and I should give you and Carl your privacy anyways. Be back in a bit," I said, about to finish my escape out the window. Only something made me pause. "Oh, and Michonne?"

"Yeah?" she acknowledged, watching me curiously.

"Carl's lucky to have you... I think you would be a good mom," I told her sincerely, hoping that it might alleviate some of her doubt and also truly believing it.

Michonne smiled at me, though it was a very somber expression as well. She nodded slowly. "Thanks, Zeke," she murmured.

Nodding, I slipped the rest of the way out the window. Despite what I had told Michonne, my ankle ached a bit in protest as it touched down on the ground.

The pain wasn't unbearable by any means, and I didn't intend to change my tune about leaving. If I was still on my own I wouldn't have had the luxury to rest for as long as I had anyways. _Not to mention that you would probably be dead,_ my mind jabbed, and unfortunately it wasn't wrong. I grimaced in response, not needing to be reminded how helpless I had been recently.

Refusing to look back to the window to see if Michonne's eyes on me were just a figment of my imagination or not, I walked towards the woods. Once I reached the cover of the trees, I stopped, not going in very far. After all, I did tell her that I was doing a perimeter check, so I couldn't run off into the forest and do my usual rotter hunting. She would expect me back soon, and with any luck, they would be getting ready to leave when I did get back. So, with that thought in mind, I began to walk the edge of the property.

My footsteps were relatively quiet, but as I walked I purposefully clicked my tongue, the noise sharply cutting through the otherwise hushed atmosphere. Both hands went to their respective hatchets, unsheathing them. The weapons remained at my sides for now since there was no trouble to be seen, but I was hoping that might change soon.

Just as I knew it would, my tongue clicking eventually attracted undead attention as I continued my stroll. Though it was only one lone rotter, and I dispatched the walking corpse with ease. That familiar rush ran through me as the almost black blood sprayed across the trunk of a nearby tree and the body hit the ground with a thud, but it wasn't nearly enough. I needed to search for more. After regarding the cadaver with a look of disdain, I stepped over it and kept walking.

The area outside the house was actually fairly clear, and I had almost completely circled the structure without running into anymore rotters except the one I had already ended. Only near the end of my route, a small group of three rotters stumbled towards me and the clicking still emitting from my mouth from further within the forest. Smirking, I turned to face them, my stance confident as my hatchets readied themselves for blood. The group approached me with two rotters coming right at me in the front, the third one lagging slightly behind. "That's more like it," I muttered under my breath as the corpses approached.

Allowing the undead to get close, I swung my left hatchet as soon as they were within my reach, separating the nearest rotter's cranium into two pieces and killing it instantly. The other rotter in the front lunged for me, but my right foot came up to push it back. This is where the mistake was made, me having forgotten to be careful with my only partially healed ankle. Pain shot up through my leg as soon as my kick made contact with the reanimated corpse. Not only did the sharp throbbing weaken a strike that otherwise probably would have knocked its target down; it also caused me to stumble back in shock. At least the rotter that I kicked was somewhat stunned, even if it didn't fall over. It was propelled backwards about a foot, right into the nearest tree. Unfortunately, I was not so lucky, and I did fall over.

"Ah, fuck!" I hissed in pain and frustration as my back hit the ground. Before I could even start getting up, the third rotter was looming over me. As it started to lunge down at me, my left hatchet came to intercept, but my aim was slightly off. Instead of hitting the rotter in the head like I planned, the blade sank into its shoulder. Despite not killing it, this held my assailant at an arm's length or so away from me, which was still better than nothing. Though I could just finish the rotter off with my other hatchet, I didn't want the body to pin me down, knowing the hungry corpse that I had kicked would be coming at me again. So rather than using my other blade on the rotter that was snarling and snapping above me, I pressed my foot(the left, uninjured one this time) into its chest and pushed as hard as I could. My hatchet ripped out of its shoulder with a squelch as it flew backwards, and I heard the crackling of twigs and the crunching of dead leaves when it hit the forest floor.

Wasting no time, I started to get to my feet. My ankle burned more than before due to my little stunt, but I let the pain fuel me. I wasn't able to fully stand before I saw the rotter that I had kicked coming back for more. A noise akin to a growl left me, and I threw myself against the corpse, my shoulder slamming into its chest. Gritting my teeth and ignoring the stinging of my ankle, I forced the rotter back against the same tree that I had kicked it into before. It responded quicker than I was expecting, cold, rotten hands grabbing my head, one of them getting a fistful of my hair. It pushed back, its face leaning in as it snapped at me. The teeth clacked together only inches away from my ear as I just barely managed to move my head back in time. The struggle ended as I brought the hatchet in my right hand up and buried it in the rotter's temple.

The weapon was stuck firmly in the cadaver's skull, and even though I tried to yank it out as the body slumped to the ground, I abandoned my effort once I heard a noise coming at me from the side, focusing on that. When I turned, I saw a completely new rotter, lured in by the sounds of my skirmish with the other corpses. It shuffled a few steps closer, and once it was in range I all but decapitated it, its bottom jaw the only thing remaining attached to the neck after my hatchet severed the connection with the rest of the head.

No sooner than the body hit the ground, did I remember that I may have missed a spot. And by a spot, I mean another undead asshole, specifically the last one from the original group of three. It crashed into me from behind, fingernails digging into my shoulders through my clothing. I lurched forward with a hissed profanity of surprise, nearly falling flat on my face, but thankfully I caught myself. Jaws snapped dangerously close to my neck, and I think almost falling actually saved me from being bitten. My free hand pressed against the rotter's forehead, pushing its mouth back and away from my body.

Frantically, I tried to shake off the corpse. It was to no avail, the grip on my shoulders unwavering, but I continued struggling anyways. At this angle, it was impossible to kill the rotter with my hatchet. Using the arm that wasn't currently keeping the reanimated body from biting me, I elbowed it in the stomach repeatedly, but since it was dead, it felt no pain and no reason to let go of me. Somewhere between starting to panic and starting to get angry, an idea suddenly came to me. Though I couldn't see what I was aiming for, I took my best guess, chopping at what was behind me with my hatchet as hard as I could.

There was a splintering noise as my hatchet sank into something. It was at the same time that I realized I hit my mark, that I realized I overlooked something about my plan. When my hatchet sliced into the side of the rotter's knee, it started to collapse just like I expected. Only the grip it had on my shoulders was still like a vice, and as the corpse fell backwards, it dragged me down with it. It happened fast, leaving me unable to withdraw my hatchet from where it was planted in the corpse's leg.

Almost immediately after we hit the ground, the rotter was trying to bite me again. The fall left me basically laying on top of it, so when I heard the snarl not far from my ear, I flung my head backwards. It collided with the undead monstrosity's face with a loud crack, and I quickly rolled off of the rotter after. My attempt to get away didn't go very far, the hungry corpse still clinging to me with perseverance. As it tried to move closer to me again, I wedged my forearm between us, digging it into the rotter's torso to keep it away from me. My other hand grasped wildly at the earth, trying to dig into it and pull me away. Failing to find any purchase, my fingers kept slipping and trying again. Until they skimmed over something that wasn't just dirt and leaves. A rock.

Quickly, my fingers wrapped around it. It was of decent size, just bigger than my hand. Enough to suit my needs. Once I had a good grip on it, I all but yelled as I swung it at my attacker. It smacked against the rotter's skull, once, twice, three times, crushing one of its orbitals and caving in that eye before the persistent thing finally loosened its grip enough for me to tear free. I pinned it on its back, straddling the corpse's chest. It gurgled a noise at me right before I brought the rock down on its head again, plowing its nose down into its face. Then again, on the forehead. And again, and again, and again. I kept hitting the rotter in the skull until I had nearly pulverized it completely. It didn't even resemble a human head anymore, more just a puddle of gore spilling out from a neck.

Breathing heavily now that the fight was over, I glanced down at myself. Fresh blood had sprayed over my clothes again, and the hand that was holding the rock, much like the rock itself, was covered in dark undead blood and brain matter. Dropping the rock, I wiped my hand off on the freshly killed rotter's shirt until I got all the chunks off. "Douchebag," I commented as I regarded the body underneath me, slowly getting up. I ripped my hatchet out of the cadaver's leg, then shuffled over to where my other one was stuck in a different body. Freeing that blade too, I took a moment to wipe them both off before I sheathed them again.

Surveying the bodies around me, I dryly said, "Perimeter clear," to myself, before walking out of the woods and back towards the open window at the back of the house. Annoyingly, I couldn't help but notice I was walking with a slight limp again. _Stupid ankle,_ I thought, disgruntled with my body. It had almost gotten me killed after all, and that was going up against only four rotters. _Pathetic. Maybe you should've stayed in the house after all?_

Fuming at myself, I almost didn't notice Michonne as I went to climb in the window. There she was, holding out her hand. Blinking in surprise, I didn't take it right away. "Want some help?" she asked, tone almost cordial. Narrowing my eyes at her for a second, I quickly analyzed her behavior, coming up with the conclusion that she had talked to Carl. When he backed up my story, she must have been pretty pleased that I told the truth, not to mention guilty about nearly taking my head off.

Giving a nod, I took the hand, and she helped me climb back into the house. Almost without thinking, I closed the window behind me, only realizing after that we were probably leaving and that there was no reason for me to do so. When I looked back to Michonne, I was met with her full attention, eyes taking in my appearance. Particularly the new dye job on my clothes and the "I just beat something to death" blood stains on my hand.

"Run into some trouble out there?" she asked, eyebrow cocked at me.

Shaking my head casually, I replied, "Told you, I was just checking the perimeter. It's clear now. We gonna get outta here?"

Michonne nodded, elaborating with, "Yeah. Carl's actually upstairs packing up your stuff for you. We already packed up ours and are ready to leave. I was waiting down here for you to get back, making sure you didn't take too long."

My head mimicked the motions of hers, and without anymore words, we started up the stairs.

* * *

We had been in the station wagon now for a couple of hours, going nowhere in particular. There was nowhere _to_ go, except to where the supplies were. Though right now, said supplies were alluding us, and we hadn't found anywhere good to stop for scavenging.

Carl and Michonne were riding in the front, Michonne driving of course, while I was sat in the back seat with my right leg laid out on the seat in front of me. I pretended that it was just because it was comfortable to sit like that, and not that it made my ankle feel better. The inside of the vehicle was nearly silent, and it had been that way for a while. The only sounds came from outside, but I was okay with that. Conversation wasn't my strong suit anyways.

"Dammit," Michonne breathed, her tone only a slight disturbance in the quiet space. But it was enough, and both Carl and I focused our attention on her now.

"What is it?" Carl asked seriously.

Michonne's head shook frustratedly a few times as she explained, "We've been riding on red for a while now. We're gonna have to leave the vehicle behind if we don't find some gas soon, and it's starting to look like we won't. I'm hoping we can at least get somewhere worth stopping before the tank is tapped, but there isn't much out here."

Leaning forward to look between the front seats, I saw what Michonne was talking about. The gas needle was teetering dangerously close to "E". "Hey, I think I see something up there," Carl commented, drawing my attention to what was past the windshield. A good distance up ahead, but not too far, there was a small building with shapes outside of it that could be at least a couple of cars. "We can make it to that, right?" he asked, glancing at Michonne.

She regarded the place he was talking about with a narrowing of her eyes, and then a responsive nod to his question. "Those look like some cars out front. We might be able to siphon some gas from them, stay on the road for a little while longer," I added.

"Hopefully," Michonne agreed, although she didn't sound too optimistic. With good reason, as the chances were that somebody sucked the gas out of those cars long before we even got close. Though it couldn't hurt to check. Probably.

Within several minutes we were crossing some train tracks, pulling up to the small structure we had seen from afar. An old train station. It looked pretty desolate, and chances were the building itself was vacant of anything useful, but there were a few cars out front. No rotters were anywhere to be seen.

Michonne shut the station wagon off and pulled the key out since obviously we didn't have any gas to waste. She looked from Carl to me, and then back again. "I'm gonna check out those cars. You two look around, stay close to each other, and you definitely don't go into that building unless you're together. No one wanders far, everyone stays within shouting distance. Understand?" Michonne asked.

Carl and I both nodded obediently. This place wasn't big anyways. We all got out of the vehicle, fanning out. Despite Michonne's orders for Carl and I to stick together, he walked off rather briskly, not seeming too keen on listening to that part of the plan. I think he was still a bit miffed with me for essentially turning him down. Shrugging it off, I decided to let him do what he wanted. Carl was a big boy, I wasn't going to hold his hand(okay, so maybe I had a few times, but right now it's just an expression) or chase him around. I started to poke around the front of the station by myself, debating if it was worth it to go inside.

"Zeke," Carl summoned flatly from around the side of the building, drawing me from my thoughts. His voice was calm, so I wasn't worried about him actually needing my help. It made me wonder what he did want. Walking to where he was, on the side of the building facing the train tracks, I found him standing there with his hands on his hips, inspecting the wall intently.

"What is it?" I asked, confused and wondering if he may have gone off some medication or something with the way he had called me over here to apparently stare at a wall.

Even though I was looking at Carl, he didn't look at me, simply nodding at the wall he was staring at and saying, "Look." I hadn't bothered to until he said something, but when I did...

"What the..." I trailed off, now also staring as my words left me.

"We should probably get Michonne," he stated simply, though his voice also sounded content in a way.

My eyes roamed over the wall, taking in every detail in amazement and disbelief. A large white banner was hung on the wall, bold, black letters reading:

 **SANCTUARY FOR ALL COMMUNITY FOR ALL**

 **THOSE WHO ARRIVE SURVIVE**

Underneath that was a map. It showed all the train routes leading to one central location, signified by a large black mark that was titled with more bold letters.

 **TERMINUS**

* * *

 **So... It's been a while. I won't make excuses, but there are a few things that have considerably slowed me down in the creation and uploading of this chapter. First, I had a little incident involving my laptop and a not fully closed bottle of Gatorade... That was pretty traumatizing. Second, school is a bitch. But anyways, I am sorry for making you all wait so long x_x. You're all amazing, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that it tides you over for a while. I'm not entirely sure when the next one will be out. I know, I know, once upon a time I said something about uploading every week. But as a wise ginger once said, "The plan got dicked."**

 **R.I.P. Abraham... T.T**

 **The Sorrowful Deity:** **Aw, man. That's savage as fuck. I kind of killed her future lover xD.**

 **thewalkerinme:** **Yup, yup. Hope you liked the surprise :P. As always, thanks for looking this garb over early for me *hearts for days *** **Also, I'm proud of you for going in this morning! :D**

 **IWalkOnMyOwn:** **Thank you! My goal was to anger you all mwhahaha. I hope you liked this one too!**

 **laverneanimemaster360:** **Mwhahaha, that's what you all were supposed to think ;P**

 **DampishPoet:** **XD sorry, man. They sorta did here? I know you aren't satisfied though xD**

 **Youngblooded:** **Thank you so much! I'm glad you found this fic too! I really appreciate the compliment on my attention to detail, I worry about that sometimes. Also, I've been considering the smut thing, and I've decided it's pointless to make a decision on it right now. I'll just end up changing my mind later xD. Besides, I have a ways to go before they get to that point in their relationship.**

 **Peter Buckley:** **Yay, I'm glad you like it! Here is the next chapter, sorry for the wait.**

 **Aka Uchiha:** **Updated! Thank you!**

 **wanyobraino:** **Sorry, I don't like updating with just A/N's. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

 **Daisuke:** **Yes! This wasn't supposed to take me so long to get out here haha. Thank you!**


	10. Steps Forward

**(Carl's POV)**

I think my little discovery may have broken Zeke.

At my suggestion that we show Michonne, he said nothing. He didn't even look over, fixated on the sign in front of us. I watched him, trying to figure out what he was thinking, but his expression was unreadable. Though I could definitely tell that there was a lot going on up there, in his head. His mouth was hanging open a bit, eyes roving all over the sign and the map. Even when I took advantage of his distraction and continued to look for a minute or two longer than was necessary, he still didn't notice.

Though I did, quickly getting angry at myself for fawning over him like an idiotic child.

" _I feel_ nothing _for him, and that's what I told you!"_

Zeke had said that to Michonne earlier, after I went upstairs. Yes, I had been listening in on their conversation, up until that point at least. When the other boy said that, something overwhelming hit me, like a punch to the diaphragm. I was between wanting to scream and wanting to vomit, so I silently slipped into my room and throttled a pillow until I managed to let neither of those things escape my mouth.

 _Get over this stupid crush! He obviously doesn't like you like that; he probably doesn't even want to be your friend like he said,_ I told myself, and it wasn't the first time I had thought something along that line. Though whenever I did, I remembered the way Zeke touched me, the way his hand cupped my face or the way it interlocked with my own hand. I remembered how I _knew_ that he wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss him, but I guess I hadn't really known shit. Even when there were no walkers to interrupt us, Zeke still wouldn't do it. His lips pressed against my cheek instead, leaving me even more confused. The older boy was nothing but mixed signals, and while he did one thing, he turned right around and said the opposite.

Whatever. I was done trying to read him and searching for signs to show that he might like me as more than a friend. He outright said that he didn't, so anything else I must have just been misreading. I guess I could try being friends with him, although it wasn't going to be easy when half of the time I wanted to break a chair over his head and the other half of the time I wanted to suck his lips off of his mouth. _Fucking hormones,_ I internally groaned.

Right now, it was one of those times when I wanted to hit him with a chair. Thankfully, I was able to resist that impulse, probably from the lack of chairs around. Instead, I stepped around the statue-like Zeke and moved to the edge of the platform that the building was on so that I could see around the structure. Though I couldn't really see her, I caught glimpses of Michonne moving over by the vehicles. "Hey, Michonne!" I called, waving an arm in my direction for her to come over once she peeked out at me from behind a rusted out red truck.

"Got something?" she called back in question, though she hadn't made any moves towards me yet.

"You should see for yourself," I answered, jerking my head off to my side and then proceeding to walk back to where I had been standing next to Zeke. He still hadn't moved, and I was beginning to think he might be catatonic. Maybe he could use a good smack...

Michonne rounded the corner at that moment, interrupting my violent thought process(luckily for Zeke). She sort of startled at the other boy's appearance. "Woah. What's got you so-" she began, only to stop as she followed his gaze. Stunned into silence, her eyes widened as she slowly moved to a better position to see the sign, now standing behind Zeke and I.

Glancing between her and the sign, I smirked with satisfaction at my find. This was more than we ever could have bargained for when we planned to scavenge this train station. This was a chance to find somewhere safe, with other people. Sanctuary, just like the sign said. This was a chance for a whole new life.

"We should go," Zeke suddenly said, apparently snapped out of the stupor he was in. I regarded him with shock, both at his abrupt statement and the words themselves. Was he actually the first one to vocalize what we all had to be thinking? Did he really want to go to this place? I honestly didn't think he'd be so agreeable about the whole idea.

"Wow, didn't think you'd be the first one to say it, but yea-" I started, only to be interrupted with words that sounded a lot more like the boy I knew.

Shaking his head rapidly, Zeke quickly corrected what I thought he meant. "No, I don't mean... _there,_ " he said vehemently, now turned away from the sign to look at Michonne and I. His eyes went down to something in her hand, and I glanced there too. Grasped in her fist was the gas can that she had been siphoning fuel into. From the way she was holding it, it looked like she ended up getting some from the cars. "You get some gas?" he asked her.

Michonne slowly nodded, opening her mouth to speak, only I beat her to it. "Are you _kidding_ me?" I asked, frustration evident in my voice.

"Carl, just wait a minu-" she began, in what sounded like an attempt to pacify me a bit. Only Zeke didn't wait for her to finish, speaking over her.

"No, I'm not. And I don't believe I stuttered anywhere in there either," he replied to me a bit sharply.

Our eyes locked, and we started a sort of staring match/battle of wills. And it looked like Michonne was going to play mediator. "Zeke, come on-" she started, though this time I was the one to interrupt.

"You really wanna just leave? We can't ignore this!" I exclaimed, arm jutting out to motion to the sign urgently.

Zeke looked at me like I was an idiot, head cocked slightly to the side as his narrowed eyes scrutinized me. I wanted to punch him in that fat dome of his and see how well he could still give me that look with one of his eyes swollen shut. "Why not? Why the hell _can't_ we?" he asked critically. "We're doing just fine out here."

" _Just fine?!_ You almost died!" I argued, knowing that would strike a nerve. Though I didn't anticipate his response, which in hindsight, I probably should have.

"So did _you,"_ he shot back icily.

Annoyance and frustration smoldered into full blown anger inside of me. "Boys-" Michonne tried again, though once again it was in vain, and I barely heard the attempt.

"At least my near death experience wasn't because of a _sprained ankle,"_ I growled in retaliation.

Zeke nearly recoiled as if he had been slapped, his expression then changing to one that looked more like he wanted to slap me. "I got chased by guys with guns! They were running around with assault rifles, and I almost got lit up like it was the damn Fourth of July! Don't talk to me about who had it harder; you couldn't even hold your own against the fucking _corpses!"_ he practically yelled, voice raised.

Those words felt a lot more like a punch to the gut than a slap. "Fuck you! If you don't want to go to Terminus with us, then why don't you just _leave_ _again_!" I spat venomously, my tone also raising to match his and then surpass it. His eyes widened a bit, and he just generally looked stunned by my comment. It wasn't until Michonne stepped between us that I realized Zeke and I had edged towards one another, so that we were in each others' faces. She separated us, one hand on my chest and the other on his as she gently, yet firmly, pushed us back in opposite directions.

"That's enough! This isn't helping anything. We need to-" she began, only this time she stopped on her own, Zeke and I remaining quiet. Her eyes looked at something behind me, in the woods. When her words halted, I heard it. _Them._ Walkers. She huffed in annoyance, giving her head a quick shake and reaching for her sword as she lowly chastised, "This is why you don't have a screaming match outside." Glancing over my shoulder, I saw two of the dead stumbling out of the brush.

About an inch of the blade had been pulled out of her sheathe before Zeke raised his hand for Michonne to stop. "I got it," he grunted, brushing past both her and I without waiting for a reply. He unsheathed his hatchets and carelessly dropped from the train platform to the ground despite his ankle. It wasn't a long distance, but it still couldn't have felt good for him. I rolled my eyes.

Michonne looked like she was going to say something to stop him, but she opted not to. Instead she lightly shoved my shoulder to get my attention. "Hey. What happened to you two being friends?" she asked quietly. I shifted my gaze to my feet and just sighed in response. Zeke had said something to her about that during their little talk, which I figured out when she confronted me about it. I had confirmed what he said, even though it was kind of hard not to rip my hair out and scream as I did.

When she realized I wasn't going to give any more of a response than that, Michonne continued in her soft voice, so that Zeke wouldn't hear. "Do you _want_ him to leave?" she questioned seriously.

The inquiry made me guilty about my words to the other boy, and I sighed again, shuffling my foot back and forth across the floor beneath me. In my hesitation to answer, I heard the sound of Zeke's blades as each one violently tore through flesh and bone. It was so familiar now that I could imagine the short scene without even looking. Just from the sounds, I could tell it was over almost as soon as he reached the walkers. A quick one, two, slashes and then the thud as each corpse hit the ground. I bet he struck with the right first, and then-

Disgusted with myself for actually knowing this, I derailed that train of thought and hoped that every little idea on board died in the violent crash in my mind. Though despite not wanting to be so familiar with Zeke, I was. He was a part of my life now. It hadn't been that long, but he just was. Everything about him, even our near constant bickering. "No," I reluctantly confessed to Michonne in a mutter.

Not even a few moments later, I heard the sound of Zeke coming back up the steps to the platform. "Then tell him that. And instead of blowing up at him, try to talk to him and make him understand. I'm with you; we need to go to this place. But he responds to yelling just about as well as you do," she quickly told me before he could reach us, in her still hushed tone. I knew she was right, and I gave a short nod to the advice. "For now, let me handle this," she added right as Zeke rejoined us. He was standing farther away from us now, like he wasn't quite a part of our small group, and I felt even worse.

After all the time I had spent wishing he would stay with us and he had finally agreed to it, I was pushing him, _shoving him,_ away. He said he would stay before, but hadn't I basically just given him an out? I could tell Zeke was still very guarded. It probably wouldn't take much to drive him off. What was even worse was that I knew how he would leave too. He wouldn't just throw in the towel right this second and walk away, even if he made the decision now.

Instead, he would wait. Michonne and I would be asleep, and the other boy would pack up his stuff and quietly slip off into the night. He wouldn't say goodbye, and we wouldn't know he was gone until it was too late to stop him.

Almost shivering at the thought, I observed the subject of my thoughts a bit. His arms were folded in front of him, and he was staring straight through Michonne and I with a rather blank expression on his face. He was in that place again, the one where he went to hide inside of himself. I had been trying pretty hard to draw him out of it, and little by little he had showed more of himself to us, speaking more, showing more emotion. I seriously hoped that I hadn't set us back to square one.

"I hope you convinced him that we need to abandon this... _Terminus,"_ he said the name like it left a bad taste in his mouth, "idea, because we can't stand around here forever. We need to gas up the car and go, before more rotters show up," Zeke proclaimed flatly, speaking directly to Michonne. His eyes moved right over the space where I stood to her, like I didn't even exist. Despite the way this made my stomach twist in the worst kind of way, I tried to take solace in the way he still referred to our little unit as "we". That was a good sign, right?

Michonne seemed to consider her next words carefully. "Why are you so against going there?" she asked calmly, her gaze locked inquisitively on to him.

Zeke gave a laugh, but the sound wasn't like the happy one I had managed to elicit from him a few times. It was cold, empty. "Because I actually want to _live,"_ he answered. Michonne didn't say anything to that, simply looking at him and waiting for him to elaborate. I was a bit surprised when he actually did. Sighing in a tired way, he said, "We don't know who put up this sign," arm indicating to the banner and the map as he spoke. "We don't know that this place is _real_ , and even if it was, that's been up there for a while. It's probably not there anymore."

The pessimism amazed me. I wasn't exactly a ray of sunshine either, but even I wasn't dissecting that possibility yet. "Right now, there's no reason for us to think that. The people there, they had enough able bodies to put up signs for their community. Chances are, it probably _is_ there," Michonne reasoned.

"We've only found one sign," Zeke argued, and I guess I had to give him points for being so unyielding.

It was Michonne's turn to sigh. "I highly doubt they only put up this one sign," she said in exasperation.

"Fine. Say this place hasn't burned to the ground, for argument's sake. My point still stands. _We don't know who put up this sign._ I know I'm not the only one who's run into bad people." At this, I actually winced, thinking of the prison. Thinking of Dad. Of Judith. Swallowing back the sadness and willing the stinging in my eyes to go away, I turned away from their debate and back to the map to distract myself. "You said it yourself, they had enough people to put up signs. What if they aren't as friendly as you hope?" Zeke asked rhetorically, and he did indeed have a very valid point. He also knew just where to hit.

"So what, we just assume that they're going to try to kill us and don't even check it out? Do we just assume everyone is bad?" Michonne countered. As the argument continued behind me, I got closer to the map to further inspect it, beginning to trace our route with my finger.

"Yes. That's exactly what we do. That's how we survive," he stated blankly.

Michonne went silent for a little while, though I didn't notice it much. I was instead starting to notice something else, my eyes widening as they drank up the map. "Zeke, I am sorry that you've had to live like that. But I know for a fact that there are still good people. How else do you explain us all meeting?" At this point, I barely heard the words. They were just background noise.

"If I'm your example, that really means we're gonna get shot walking into that place."

She started to reply, but I didn't hear it, the noise being drowned out by my own voice. "Michonne! Come here," I called urgently, waving my hand to beckon her, but too focused on the map to even look back. Soon, I could feel her presence over my shoulder. "Look at this," I breathed excitedly, pointing to a part of the map where I roughly estimated the prison to be, or what was left of it now. Though it wasn't our former home that animated me. "It's a miracle we didn't run into any tracks before this and find a sign," I stated, glancing back at her and smiling. Not far from the prison were several sets of train tracks. In fact, they were kind of everywhere.

Michonne's eyes widened as she realized what I was implying. "If any of the others survived..." she trailed off, her hand reaching out to gently touch the map.

"I have a feeling I'm missing something," Zeke dryly said from where he was standing a ways behind us, not having moved from his spot.

Michonne whirled around, and I followed the example. "We're going to Terminus," she declared, tone full of conviction.

Slowly sighing, Zeke looked at both of us with that ever expressionless face. "Did you not hear anything I said?" he asked.

Her head shook. "Doesn't matter. If any of our friends from the prison are alive, they would go to Terminus if they found a sign," Michonne shot back instantly, and she was obviously no longer interested in trying to argue with him.

"There's no possible way to know if-" he began, but Michonne held up her hand for silence.

"You're right. But Carl and I... we need to try. If there's even the slightest _chance_ that we could find any of our people again, we need to take it," she insisted, which I certainly couldn't have said any better.

Zeke didn't react much to this. "This is a bad plan. You just got gasoline for our vehicle, and instead of using it you just want to abandon the car altogether to go on a long ass walk to a place that might not even exist? It's stupid and dangerous, but... I understand it," he said, finally showing at least a tiny bit of support for the idea. Though I didn't like where this sounded like it was going.

Michonne hesitated for a moment, looking like she wanted to speak but also didn't want to say whatever it was that was on the tip of her tongue. She glanced at me for a split second, then her gaze was back on him. "You _should_ come with us, but we can't force you. If you wanna take the car and keep going," she said, indicating to the can of gas she had set down, "you can."

How could she say that?! If I had given Zeke an out, she was holding the door open for him. Now he didn't have to wait until we were asleep and sneak away. Michonne had outright given him permission to leave right now. I glared at the back of her head, hoping she felt it, and wanting to yell at her. Though I couldn't do it now, in front of him. I just had to wait and see what his choice was.

With that last statement made, Michonne walked away. I followed her with my eyes until she rounded the corner and I couldn't see her anymore. Though I heard the sound of her descending the stairs, and I assumed she was going to grab her stuff from the station wagon. This left Zeke and I alone. He said nothing, but he started to walk towards me.

At least, that's what I thought. Instead, he stopped by the gas can and, without looking at me, grabbed the handle and lifted it off the floor. My heart sank. "Zeke..." I trailed off, unsure of what to say to make him change his mind. Apologies and a thousand other things that I wanted to say to him ran through my mind. Then he looked at me, and all the noise in my head fell silent. I found my throat closed, unable to say anything at all. He still didn't speak either, just staring at me coldly and expectantly as he waited for whatever I was going to say. When I remained speechless, he turned and walked after Michonne. Except he wasn't planning on pulling his bag out of the car and coming with us.

For a second I stayed where I was, temporarily alone. _Is this really happening? Is he really just going to leave because of what I said? That's ridiculous! He is_ not _that sensitive. I mean yeah, I think it kind of upset him... Maybe it really did. But that can't be the only reason he wants to leave. It has to be Terminus... Why won't he go? I'm worried about them being bad too, but it felt more like he was just making excuses to stay away,_ I thought, mind racing as it tried to comprehend this. Zeke was going to leave, again.

I wanted to run after him and beg him to come with us. I wanted to slap the gas can out of his hands and hit him and kiss him and _make_ him stay like he promised me he would. But I didn't do any of that.

Instead, I slowly trailed after him and Michonne, my gaze focused on my feet. I stopped when I saw the stairs, looking up so that I could see Zeke and Michonne. She had a backpack on and a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, most of our supplies. The only thing left was my backpack.

Zeke was stepping around Michonne, going for the station wagon's gas tank. Though I couldn't see it from this side of the vehicle, it looked like he was opening up the tank's cap when Michonne grabbed his arm. I could tell that it wasn't in an antagonizing way, and the touch appeared to be gentle. She leaned in and whispered something to him, something that was way too quiet for me to hear. I couldn't read her lips either.

He stopped what he was doing, furrowing his eyebrows at her words and then glaring at her in frustration. It was almost like she had presented him with some riddle he couldn't solve, and I was seriously pondering what she could have said. My eyes widened, and I blinked a few times in shock as Zeke lowered the gas can to the ground in a resigned way. Michonne released him, stepping back and smiling with satisfaction.

I watched in utter disbelief as Zeke walked around Michonne again, going to the back of the vehicle. Had she actually convinced him to stay? Just like that? Feeling eyes on me, I looked at my miracle-working friend. She was smirking, and she even winked at me. I decided I was going to interrogate her at the next opportunity. She must be some kind of Zeke-whisperer to accomplish a feat like that, and I intended to uncover her secrets.

For now, I just tried not to look too happy as I went to grab my backpack.

* * *

"You should talk to him. Get him to take a break or something," I suggested.

"I think _you_ should talk to him," Michonne replied.

"He's not gonna listen to me. I can't control people's minds like you can," I muttered sourly.

She laughed at that. "What?" she asked incredulously, glancing over at me. I gave her a look, silently saying, _"You know what,"_ with my expression. "Oh, you mean _that_. That was nothing."

"Yeah? Well, I'd like to learn how to do _nothing_ then. What did you even say to him?" I asked.

Michonne shrugged. "Just told him what he needed to hear," she explained simply and in an annoyingly vague way.

We had been walking for a couple of hours now, following the tracks to Terminus. Michonne and I were side by side, while Zeke was far enough ahead of us that we didn't have to worry about him hearing what we were saying. All of us were in between the iron rails, directly on the train tracks since that was where the ground was the most even.

Our pace was a bit hindered by the boy in front of us. We could be moving faster, but despite Zeke's ankle being well on the way to healing, it still slowed him somewhat. It probably didn't help that he was weighed down by not only his large backpack, but also by the gas can in his hand, even fuller than when Michonne had it since Zeke had siphoned the remainder of the station wagon's gas out.

He insisted we take it with us, arguing that several roads ran parallel to our walking route at different times, and if we found another vehicle the gas would be useful. I gave up debating it rather easily since I didn't want to drive him further away than I already had. He was basically ignoring my existence anyways, so any input I had was useless. Michonne tried to convince him that the heavy gas can would only slow us down, but he just told her not to worry about it.

Now, he'd been carrying it ever since. He hadn't tried to pass it off to either Michonne or I, and in fact, he hadn't even spoken to either of us since we left the train station. This is why we were behind him, despite both of us being able to move faster. Very early in our walk, we noticed that Zeke would speed up whenever we got even remotely close to him. Obviously we could just speed up too, but he just kept walking faster and faster, so much so that we could visibly see the strain on him. We began to linger a good distance away from him, unanimously deciding that it would be kinder to just give him the space he wanted. Our travel rate might suffer a little bit, but it's not as if we were on a time constraint to get to Terminus.

However, it did make me feel like a massive dick that Zeke was basically boycotting our presence right now. I kept thinking about what I said, wishing I could take the words back. "You're not gonna tell me, are you?" I asked when Michonne answered my question in a far less satisfying way than I was hoping for, glaring at her in annoyance.

She shook her head in confirmation. "What I said to him doesn't matter. It's not like they were magic words. You just need to talk to him. You know... apologize," she suggested, giving me a pointed look as she said the last word.

Sighing, I said nothing at first. But I knew that she was right. "I suck at apologies," I complained in a grumble.

An idea seemed to pop into Michonne's head as she grinned at me and then held up her finger for me to wait a moment. I was intrigued, and I slowed my steps as she did the same, beginning to dig into the duffel bag. I heard a crinkle, and she appeared to contemplate something before pulling out what I realized was a candy bar. She offered it to me.

It was a Big Cat, Michonne's favorite. I must have looked confused as I took it from her, because she elaborated with, "For Zeke. Chocolate might soften him up a little bit, plus it gives you an excuse."

"You're just giving it up? You love these things," I commented in surprise, examining the candy bar idly as I spoke.

"That's because they're _awesome,"_ she responded as if the awesomeness of Big Cat bars was a life or death matter. "So I know that it'll work. Besides, there's still a Crunch bar somewhere in there for me."

My eyebrows raised at her in disbelief. "You're settling for a Crunch bar? Wow, I didn't know you and Zeke were so close..." I trailed off jokingly.

"We all have to make sacrifices, Carl," she retorted with a fake tone of seriousness, like she had handed me her left leg instead of a chocolate bar. Though her face wasn't able to keep the same composure, and a small smirk showed through. I huffed incredulously, and her hand went to my back as she lightly pushed me. "Now go," she ordered in a whisper before I was propelled forward a few steps.

Throwing another irritated glare at her from over my shoulder, I jogged to catch up with Zeke, fast enough so that he wouldn't have a chance to get away from me unless he ran. He heard me and looked back a few seconds before I reached him, but just as he started to speed up, he seemed to realize how futile it was and returned to his normal pace.

He stared straight ahead, not looking at me again even as I fell into step beside him. Not even when I looked at him. Not even when I looked long enough to watch a bead of perspiration roll down his face. _Focus, Carl,_ I reminded myself, shaking myself out of my staring and moving my gaze to my feet. "Hey," I greeted him quietly.

There was no response. I suppose I really shouldn't have expected one. Remembering the candy that Michonne had given me as I felt it in my hand, I held it out in front of us, sort of waving it a few times to catch Zeke's attention. He barely even gave it a glance, simply looking at it in his peripheral. At least it was something. "You want some chocolate? It's a Big Cat bar; they're pretty good-"

"Not hungry," he dismissively answered, not even giving me time to finish. My eyes fell again and I swallowed, feeling a bit like he jabbed me in the ribs. I put the chocolate bar in my back pocket, deciding I would return it to Michonne later.

At a loss for words, I said nothing for a few moments as I recovered. Then I cleared my throat and looked at him again, my gaze flickering between him and the can of gas in his hand as I offered, "You, uh, want me to carry that for a little while?" I gestured to the gas can. "You've had it the whole time, and you have to be pretty tire-"

"I got it," he cut me off again, his voice still monotone. All his words sounded more like, _"Go away."_ Another jab to the ribs. A lump formed in my throat, as if all the things I wanted to say had jumbled up there and gotten stuck, making it hard to speak or even breathe.

Running out of things to break the ice, I weakly tried, "Okay, well... we could take a break if you wanted to. Michonne and I were talking about it since we've been walking for a while now and-"

"I'm fine."

Realizing my mistake, I knew that I should have just said we wanted to take a break instead of leaving him the choice by saying, "if you wanted to." Though it was too late now. Sighing, I glared at my shoes hard. The lump in my throat enlarged, taking up all the room now. After a minute or two of silence, I was thankfully able to swallow it. "Please don't do this," I said quietly, nearly whispering the words. I didn't look over at him while saying this, so I actually wondered if he even heard me.

I knew he had when I felt eyes, even though it was for the briefest instant. When I looked over, he wasn't looking at me, and I wondered if maybe I had imagined it. "Do what?" he asked, though his blank voice made it sound more like a statement.

"Shut me-" I began, only this time I cut myself off, not meaning to word it like that. "Shut _us_ out," I corrected a second later. My apology lingered on the tip of my tongue, and I hesitated to say it. Unsure _how_ to even say it. I fiddled with my shirt sleeve as I looked down. "I didn't mean what I said back at the train station. I was mad, and it was just... a stupid thing. I don't want-" I paused, sighing and looking over at him. He _still_ wouldn't look at me. "That's not what I want," I finished, unable to repeat what I had said to him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied dully.

"Zeke, come on. You know what I mean," I insisted, because he did know. He had to. He was just acting like it was nothing, like it didn't affect him.

"Carl, I don't even remember what you said."

That was a lie. He wouldn't be acting like this if he didn't remember. Though I knew I wasn't going to make things right by just dancing around this, by avoiding what I had said. "I don't _want_ you to leave!" I blurted out frustratedly, louder than I intended, staring at him intensely and willing him to look at me, to really _hear_ me. "I-I'm sorry," I continued, quiet again.

Zeke stopped, dead in his tracks. I almost fell over trying to stop with him as my legs halted but the rest of me pitched forward slightly. He looked at me. No. He _glared_ at me, the expression making me wonder if my words had somehow came out completely different than how I heard them. Maybe I insulted him again without knowing.

Our eyes locked for what felt like forever but was probably not even a minute. His burned into me. They were so dark. Right now they reminded me of black holes. Powerful, destructive forces. I had a science teacher once who tried to explain what were to happen if someone got sucked into a black hole. Theoretically, if someone were to get sucked into a black hole, it would stretch them out like a spaghetti noodle(the picture I had of this in my head made me laugh at the time). It would keep stretching them until they were nothing but particles that swirled into the vortex. Long story short, it would consume them.

Right now, I imagined the same thing happening to me as I stared into Zeke's eyes. I got lost in their dark depths, saw myself falling into one. I saw myself dissolving, becoming part of it. Part of him. I then decided that this wouldn't be a bad way to go.

My fantasy was cut short as something large suddenly whacked me in the chest. Instinctively, my arms came up around whatever it was as I stumbled back a step, and I grunted in surprise. When I looked down, my arms were wrapped around the gas can. The powerful stench of its contents soon filled my nostrils. My nose wrinkled and I tilted my head back away from it as far as I could.

When I looked back to Zeke, he had already turned and was walking away again. I opened my mouth, about to yell at him, but then I recalled that I had offered to carry the gas can before... Maybe this was progress in a weird way? He was obviously still a bit pissed at me, but at least I had gotten some kind of reaction out of him instead of just his near silent treatment. Of course, I would have preferred his forgiveness.

Sighing, I adjusted my grip on the gas can so that I was actually holding onto the handle at the top, letting it hang at my side instead of holding it against me. I watched Zeke again as he walked away, now moving a bit faster due to no longer being so burdened. A few moments later, Michonne was at my side once more. She regarded me with sympathy in her eyes, offering a small smile harboring the same emotion. "So... I'm gonna go ahead and guess that didn't go as planned," she said.

Shifting my hat's position on my head to shadow my face a bit more, I mumbled, "Here's your Big Cat back," as I used my free hand to reach into my pocket. I held it out to her without looking over, but she very quickly declined. Her hand gently pushed down on my arm to lower it.

"That's okay, Carl. You can keep it. Maybe try again later. Come on, we shouldn't let him get too far ahead," she murmured back softly, giving my arm a light squeeze before following Zeke. I shoved the candy bar back in my pocket and trailed after her a second later, this time opting to stay a few steps behind.

* * *

The sun was starting to set.

We hadn't found anywhere good to spend the night, so this left us in the woods. We had walked a little ways into the forest until we found a small clearing, a fairly suitable place to make camp that also wasn't far from the train tracks. Michonne had started building a fire pit immediately, which left Zeke and I to gather firewood.

Considering that we had been walking for most of the day and I was running on little sleep, I was exhausted. My legs were sore, along with my arms from carrying the gas can for a while. At least Michonne had been kind enough to take turns with me. On the other hand, Zeke had been operating under basically the same conditions, and other than a slight limp from his injured ankle, he showed no signs of being worn down in any way.

It was like the guy couldn't feel any pain. I mean, I'm sure he felt it, but his face was a blank slate. Stone cold as it had been all day. I hadn't seen him yawn once, or even wince despite the limping. Now that I thought about it, I hadn't seen Zeke do much of anything _human_ today. He was near robotic, and I couldn't help but feel that I had flipped that switch.

Even when a walker had come at him from seemingly out of nowhere, Zeke hadn't even looked surprised. It had clearly caught him off guard, and he had barely managed to put his arms up in defense. Yet there had been no shocked expression on his face. I had called his name and went for my gun, but for Zeke it had been like it was just another day at the office. A bit of his anger had slipped through as he slammed the walker's head into a nearby tree trunk several times and then burst its skull underneath his foot like a rotten, meat-filled watermelon, but after it was over he simply wiped his hands on his jeans. He never even made a sound.

My dad's revolver had been half way out of the holster as I just sort of stared at him, stunned, but he hadn't even looked at me or said anything, stepping over the corpse and beginning to forage for branches for the fire.

That's what we were still doing, collecting kindling and whatever large pieces of wood we could find. I thought about trying to talk to Zeke again, but I wasn't really in the mood to be ignored again. So we went on silently, though I could hear his movements as he sifted through the undergrowth and picked up branches and sticks. Thankfully we had come to a mental consensus not to drift too far apart, so whenever I looked up I could see his dark figure a few hundred yards away doing the same thing that I was.

I had gathered a rather big pile of firewood by now, and I was planning on getting Zeke and going back as I plucked one last dead branch from the ground. Just as I was adding it to the stack balanced in my arms, a voice asked, "How are you doing?" from relatively close behind me. I startled, dropping all the wood and reaching for my knife. My palm just touched the handle when my brain processed the voice and recognized it.

Sighing in annoyance, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Zeke standing beside a tree. I began to recollect the firewood as I said, "Well, considering some sneaky asshole just made me drop all my firewood, I'm great," with a blatantly sarcastic tone. There was no point in waiting for an apology since I knew I wasn't about to get one.

"That's not what I meant," he stated, completely ignoring my comment. Maybe I shouldn't have called him an asshole, but at this point he was already pissed at me for earlier so I figured slipping that remark in there couldn't hurt his opinion of me much more. "How much firewood do you have?" he asked.

Once I had gathered my pile together again, I stood up and faced him so that he could see it. "Enough," I answered, seeing that he also had a sizable bundle in his arms. "You ready to go back?" I asked in return.

His head moved in a nod. "Yes," he replied, turning and starting to head back towards camp without hesitation. I followed him, more words coursing through my head since we were alone. But once again, I didn't want him to just ignore me again, so I was apprehensive to speak my mind. Since we hadn't wandered very far from camp, we reached it too quick for me to muster up the courage to say anything. Zeke dumped his stack of firewood next to a small fire-pit Michonne had dug out and surrounded with stones. I followed suit.

Michonne arranged the sticks and branches in a way that would make the fire light easily, and I took the liberty of searching through our stuff for something to start it with. Only I stopped when I glanced back and saw Zeke crouching down at the fire-pit next to Michonne with something in his hands. Squinting to get a better look, I saw this strange looking small rod in one of his hands and an equally small metal plate in the other. They were better illuminated when he struck them against each over the kindling, and sparks flew.

Michonne was also watching him, and she nodded approvingly as he repeated the action a few times until a fire started. Curiosity getting the best of me, I asked, "What is that?" as he stood back up. He glanced at me for the briefest of moments, firelight now dancing in his eyes.

"A fire striker," he muttered, turning and putting it back in his bag.

"Modernized flint and steel," Michonne commented with a nod.

Zeke didn't respond. He pulled a can of something out of his backpack and sat down farther away from the fire than someone who actually wanted to stay warm typically would, knees bunched up in front of him. He whipped out his knife and started to pry open the can of food.

"Hey, wait up. We can warm that up," Michonne suggested, motioning to the fire in front of her. "There's no reason to eat cold soup when we have a fire."

The older boy grunted his reply, and if there were actual words within the gruff noise then I didn't hear them. He continued sawing open his can of soup, not even looking up at Michonne. She shuffled over until she was knelt in front of him, and once again she was doing that Zeke-whispering thing. I could tell. She put a hand over one of his and softly said something. This time, I actually heard it.

"Come on. Lighten up."

Her words certainly weren't some magic spell, but maybe her tone was. I had no idea, but whatever her trick was, Zeke looked up at her. His face was still impassive, actually surprising me with how empty his eyes were. Yet he relinquished the can, and she took it over to the fire. "Carl, get some food. We should all have a good meal for our first night on the way to Terminus," she called over to me quietly. I almost was too busy picking my jaw up off of the ground to hear her after the way she mind-controlled Zeke like that, but I did, doing as she said. Though not before noticing the way Zeke's lip twitched in what looked like a brief, silent snarl at the mention of Terminus.

In our supplies I found a different kind of soup, and some crappy cereal. Michonne was using a long stick that forked at the end to hold Zeke's can of soup over the fire when I turned back to her, and I placed the other food on the ground by where she was sitting before taking a seat nearby, on the opposite side of the fire-pit as Zeke.

Michonne convinced me to play this stupid game where I threw pieces of cereal at her and she attempted to catch them with her mouth. Admittedly, it was pretty amusing, and I found myself laughing at her more than once. She also threw the pieces that didn't get in her mouth back at me, but I had nowhere near the skill to catch them. I usually just threw them back again or ate them normally. Somehow, she kept this up while still cooking the soup over the fire, not having spilled even once.

She tried to get Zeke to join our game too, but obviously that didn't work out. However, she did manage to coax him closer to the fire, so that was something. I offered him some cereal(without throwing it at him), but he just declined it with a mumble. So Michonne and I left him alone for a little while, just playing our game and chatting lightly.

When the soup was done, she passed it to Zeke and then started on the other can. We ended up sharing, passing both of the cans of soup around along with the cereal. We had all quieted down to about Zeke level now, too busy eating for chitchat.

Once we had finished, talking started up again between Michonne and I. Zeke, of course, remained silent, stoking the fire with a stick every now and then. He was staring into the flames, and I tried not to watch him. Soon, Michonne began to make efforts to draw him into the conversation.

At first, her attempts were met with icy one or two word responses, if he responded at all, but eventually she asked him something that he looked like he might reply to, something that I was actually a bit curious about myself. "Zeke, I've been wondering... You don't sound very southern. Why is that?"

"That's probably because I'm not very southern," he stated stonily. I thought he might just leave us with that, but after a second of hesitation, he added, "I used to live in Pennsylvania, with my mom."

Michonne raised an eyebrow in surprise, and I felt the same way. Both because of how far away that was and because he had actually told us. "Pennsylvania? That's some trip to come here. Why did you?" she asked.

Zeke seemed to realize something, looking at Michonne and shaking his head a few times. "Oh, no, it's not what you're thinking. I _used to_ live there," he said vaguely, pausing to consider something. "My mom died in a car accident when I was eleven, and I came south," he explained, staring into the fire again.

Michonne nodded sympathetically, though her expression soon changed back to a curious, if not a little puzzled, one. "You've been around here a while. I'm surprised you don't have more of a drawl," she observed, which was true. He tended to enunciate most of his words.

In response, the quiet boy just shrugged. "Guess it never felt like home," he responded. I wondered why, though since Michonne had finally gotten Zeke talking, I wasn't going to spoil it by speaking up now.

The Zeke-whisperer herself looked contemplative over this. Though eventually she changed her expression to a smirk as she quipped, "Got somethin' against Georgia?"

His eyes darted to her for a minute, and it actually looked like he was fighting a smirk of his own. He managed to smother the expression as he flatly said, "I actually haven't been here long, but now that you mention it, it's hot and everyone keeps trying to eat me." Receiving questioning glances from both Michonne and I(though I think he ignored mine), Zeke explained, "I uh, actually didn't come to Georgia until after everything happened. I was a few states over, in Louisiana."

"What made your family move so far after-" Michonne began, but she seemed to rethink her wording, cutting herself off. "Um, what made you move so far?"

Zeke briefly glanced at her, expression unreadable. Though he was soon staring back into the fire, stoking it again with the stick in his hand as he said, "There was no _family_ ," his voice harboring a twinge of contempt as the word left his lips. "It was just me, and I didn't have a choice. My father lived in Louisiana," he stated, tone rather icy.

Taking the hint, Michonne nodded and didn't press for any more information. "I know it doesn't mean much, but I am sorry for what happened to your mom," she said sincerely.

I never really understood the formality of offering condolences. Michonne made it sound like she really was sorry, but what was the point of apologizing for the death of someone when you had nothing to do with it? What was the point of apologizing for someone's death at all, even if you did have something to do with it? In the end, no amount of apologies could ever make a difference. They didn't mean a damn thing. That's one reason I didn't say anything to Zeke, the other being that he still probably didn't want to hear anything I had to say.

In response to her words, Zeke shrugged. "It happened a long time ago," he murmured simply, and then fell silent.

After that, he remained quiet for the rest of the night. Michonne and I talked for a little while longer, but we didn't stay up too long. It was darker now, the only light coming from our fire and the moon. The forest looked rather intimidating, the trees looming over us. "I'll take first watch," Michonne offered. "We all need our rest for tomorrow. I'll wake Zeke up to relieve me, then after a few hours you wake Carl up to take over until dawn," she continued, motioning to each of us as we were mentioned.

Yawning, I nodded in agreement of Michonne's plan. It gave me the longest uninterrupted period of sleep, since I was the last shift. That basically meant I would just have to wake up the earliest, which I could handle.

Zeke also gave a nod, though rather robotically, apparently satisfied with his shift as well. I had a hunch however that he would not have batted an eye if Michonne told him to take all three shifts and just not sleep at all. He was still mostly on autopilot or something, from what I could tell. I watched him grab his bag and use it as a pillow as he settled on a spot on the ground, his back turned to us. He had to have been cold, considering the gap he put between himself and the fire, but my annoyance grew at that thought. It wasn't my problem if he wanted to freeze to death because he was too stubborn to get a little closer to us and the fire.

I, on the other hand, was not going to be shivering the entire night. Using my bag as a pillow as well, I laid down as close as I could to the fire without overheating, staring into the inferno and watching the flames dance before me. It was kind of hypnotizing, and I found my eyelids growing heavy. "Night, Michonne," I barely managed to mutter, vaguely registering her response before I gave into my exhaustion.

* * *

Terror. Overwhelming sadness. Not to mention a huge sense of loss, like someone took a cannon to my life and blew a giant hole in it. These are the emotions I experienced due to this night's devastating nightmare, as I relived the traumatizing moment that I blew my own father's brains out. Still didn't feel real sometimes, him being gone.

However, the nightmare wasn't what woke me up tonight.

The terror from my dream carried over into the real world as I suddenly felt hands on me, pulling me, dragging me along the ground. I struck out before I was even fully awake, fists flying in all directions until one of them caught something. Whoever was dragging me immediately let go, leaving me laying on the ground, disoriented from just waking up.

The first thing my eyes caught sight of was the campfire, now burning low, but still going all the same. My backpack was pretty close to it, marking where I had been sleeping, and Michonne was still sleeping on the other side from what I could see. The fire didn't provide much light, and it was _dark._ This didn't help my fear, and I somewhat frantically grabbed for my dad's revolver as I tried to figure out if I should be calling out for Michonne or if I should be trying to find out what was happening.

" _Fuck!_ " a familiar voice hissed lowly from behind me, obviously belonging to the person who was pulling me away from the fire. This caused me to release the handle of the revolver that I had just grabbed and look back to see his shadowy figure, somewhere between relieved and pissed off.

I was about to let him have it, but then it occurred to me that he had kept his profanity quiet for a reason. Michonne was still sleeping after all. "Zeke, what the hell are you doing?!" I asked in the equivalent of a yell, only I whispered it. "You scared the shit out of me."

The realization that I had hit him in the mouth came to me as I heard him spit out what I imagined to be at least a little bit of blood, though despite us not being far from the fire, the light from the embers wasn't enough for me to see it. "You started moving in your sleep and shit, and you were pretty close to the fire. I was just going to leave you until you pretty much stuck your leg in it. So what I was doing was trying to keep your dumb ass from lighting up like a candle," he replied in the same low tone, sounding annoyed.

Guilt filled me as Zeke relayed this to me, along with frustration. These nightmares were starting to become way too big of an issue. I needed to get them under control. "Sorry. Didn't realize," I mumbled, still not enjoying apologizing despite the fact that it was owed. I got up off the ground and brushed myself off a bit, though my clothes were filthy at this point so it really didn't matter.

Zeke didn't respond, silently walking past me and the fire. He stuck to the shadows for the most part, staying at the edge of the area of illumination that the low burning campfire provided until he slipped into darkness altogether, leaning against a tree. All I could see was his outline.

After my nightmare, I wasn't too keen on going back to sleep, despite how late it was. It would probably be my turn to keep watch soon anyways. I walked back to the fire, sitting down and resting my folded arms over my knees.

Attempting to make conversation with Zeke was useless at this point. That didn't stop me from wanting to try, but he was obviously still pissed at me. Hitting him in the face probably didn't help. Whenever I looked over to him, he was dead silent and motionless. It was hard to find him because of the way he was leaning against the tree, making his outline more difficult to pick out. It was also annoying because I couldn't tell which way he was looking. He could be staring at me for all I knew.

Since I had self-control, I ignored my urge to go and talk to him. He was an asshole, so I didn't understand why I wanted to so badly anyways. I decided that I was going to pretend it was boredom, even though I knew that wasn't really it. Despite not having anything to do at the moment, I wouldn't necessarily say I was bored. I think I was too exhausted to be bored. But I was used to being exhausted by now, and I didn't intend to go back to sleep. Staring into the fire and trying to collect my thoughts was fine with me. Or rather, trying to block out my thoughts, block out everything.

For a while, that's just what I did. Nothing. I sat there until the embers started to dwindle, and then I was met with a surprise as the fire was stoked and glowing hot ash leapt up and floated away with the smoke. Startled, I jumped a bit. Though it was just Zeke, stirring the fire and adding a branch to it. I was so focused on nothing that I hadn't noticed him approach. At first he paid me no attention, even as I watched him tend our campfire, but eventually, he glanced at me for a fleeting moment. Then, with his eyes back on the flames, he said, "You should get some more sleep. It's going to be your turn to keep watch soon."

My head shook out of reflex, even though he wasn't looking at me. "I'm good. Actually, I'll take over for you now if you want," I offered, knowing that I wasn't getting any more sleep and that Zeke would probably keep watch longer than he needed to if I let him.

"I can manage," he replied briskly, as I kind of expected. He stood up from where he had been crouched by the fire, turning to walk away.

"I know that, but there's no point in both of us sitting here, awake. It's practically my turn anyways," I argued, not giving up so easily.

Zeke stopped, considering it I guess. "Fine. If you want," he relented, surprising me. He turned back, looking at me expectantly.

It took me a minute to realize what he was waiting for. "Oh no, I'm not gonna freeze my ass off. I can keep watch perfectly fine from here, by the fire," I said, not intending to go and stand in the dark like he had.

"You'll have better cover by the trees, and you'll be able to see easier if you let your eyes adjust to the darkness. That fire is like a beacon, so anyone or anything who would kill us will walk right towards it. But they won't be expecting you if you come from the darkness. Put a bullet in their head, a knife through their skull, whatever works," Zeke advised, surprising me with how methodical his words were, along with how they had me actually changing my mind.

"Wow, that's, uh, actually really smart," I commented as I slowly got up, not meaning to make it sound like such a compliment.

The other boy only nodded once in response, in more of a matter of fact way than a cocky one. Then he turned and started walking back towards the woods. I watched him, a confused expression on my face no doubt. "Aren't you going to warm up by the fire and try to get some more sleep?" I asked, puzzled as to why he was going in the opposite direction. Given his advice, I also stepped away from the fire, following him.

"I'm gonna go scout around, see what's out there. I'll be back in a while," he answered without turning around or even stopping.

" _Now?_ You're not gonna see much of anything right now, it's way too dark. You'll just be tripping over yourself out there, and you could get lost," I replied as I continued to follow him, though he showed no sign of stopping or that he was even going to reply for that matter.

He kept walking away without acknowledging what I said, so I sped up, stepping in front of him and putting my hands out to get him to stop. They made contact with his chest, and both of us stepped back as though we had been shocked. At least he finally stopped, though he was glaring at me now from what I could tell. It was hard to see his expression in the darkness, but I felt it.

"You can't just go running off in the middle of the night," I insisted.

"I can and I am. I don't take orders from anyone, especially not you," he responded coldly.

"We've been walking all day. You need more sleep unless you want to be exhausted later," I tried, going for a different approach.

"I can take care of myself. You should get back to keeping watch," he replied, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the campfire, where Michonne was still sleeping. We weren't far away from the fire or anything, but he was right.

Before I could muster up a response, Zeke was walking past me. I caught his arm to try to stop him again, and started to speak. "Wait-"

He ripped his arm out of my grasp with one quick jolt. However, he did stop for a moment, glancing over his shoulder at me to say, "I'm not leaving. If I was, I would take my shit with me. If I'm not back before you guys want to leave in the morning, then you can worry. But unless that happens, don't try to find me."

Reluctantly, I said, " _Fine_ ," hoping the word expressed my displeasure. "Can you at least tell me what the hell you're actually doing out there instead of feeding me some half-baked _crap_ about scouting?" I asked, more aggressively than I meant to.

Instead of doing as I asked, Zeke walked away without another word. I opened my mouth to protest this, but just ended up closing it again, knowing my words would fall on deaf ears. However, I still stuck up my middle finger at his back as it disappeared into the dark woods, the gesture making me feel a bit better despite knowing he didn't see it.

"Dick," I muttered as I turned back to the fire, taking Zeke's place against the tree to keep watch.

* * *

The sun rose, and there was no sign of Zeke. Whatever he went out there to do, he spent the rest of the night doing it, because he never came back. Though a small part of me was paranoid that he left, I tried to rationalize that there's no way he would've left us with his backpack full of supplies. Not to mention that he specifically told me that he wasn't leaving. Zeke may not be the nicest all the time, but I was pretty sure he wouldn't lie like that.

I speculated on what he was doing out there for so long. It had literally been _hours._ He had made it sound like he was going to be gone a while when he left, but I thought he would come back before it got light out. Was something wrong?

An image of a bloody, injured Zeke flashed through my head, but I pushed it away, not wanting to worry about him. Especially when he was being such a moody asshole. Though it was hard not to when he had been gone for so long.

My eyes scanned the woods restlessly, willing him to emerge from the trees. When it didn't work, I wanted nothing more than to run in and search for him, no matter how hard I was denying it. My foot had been tapping impatiently for probably the past hour, but I was rooted here, by our little clearing, until Michonne woke up. Despite not wanting to be worried about Zeke, I was, and whether I acknowledged it or not, I had been formulating a plan to go look for him once Michonne finally awoke. There were a few times where I almost woke her up myself.

All of my thinking about Michonne waking up must have paid off however, because suddenly I heard shifting noises behind me. I quickly looked back over my shoulder to see the woman sitting up and stretching next to our former fire, which had now dwindled to nothing but smoking embers.

"Michonne!" I exclaimed, practically rushing over to her. She jumped a little, obviously surprised by my enthusiastic greeting, which reminded me that I should probably tone it down some. I forced myself to calm down a bit, not wanting her to think anything was wrong. "Good morning," I said, slower and more mellow this time, even though what I really wanted to do was hurry this conversation along so I could go find Zeke.

"Hey, Carl... Everything okay?" she asked a bit cautiously as she stood up and did a few more morning stretches. She was regarding me with a curious expression. Then she seemed to notice something, looking around the clearing and the surrounding forest. "Where's Zeke?" she asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"Oh, I was just about to tell you. He went off on a walk a few minutes ago, and since you're up now, I was going to see if I could go catch up to him," I lied. The only reason I didn't tell her the truth is so that she wouldn't worry and insist on coming with me, though I wasn't entirely sure why I didn't want her to.

"Ah, yeah, okay. Go ahead, I'll stay here and get some breakfast ready or something," she replied, surprisingly not seeing through my lie. Michonne had a pretty good detector for bullshit, so typically not much got past her. Maybe it was the fact that she had just woken up, or maybe I was just adapting to how good she was at seeing through lies. Whatever it was, I almost felt a sense of accomplishment at being able to successfully mislead her.

"Okay. Uh, I'm gonna try to make nice with him again, so it might be a little while before we come back," I said, not knowing if it was a lie or not.

"Alright. Just try not to be gone for longer than an hour, or I'll start to get worried," she replied, to which I nodded. I really hoped an hour would be enough time, considering Zeke had been gone for much longer than that, and I had no idea how far he had gone.

"Okay, see you in a little while," I said hastily, before spinning around and all but running into the woods.

"Hey, Carl!" her voice called from behind me, causing me to slow down and look back. I didn't get a chance to say anything before she followed up with, "Be careful," her tone serious, but also warm.

I didn't give a verbal response to this, instead just giving her a thumbs up as I continued to jog in the direction that I had seen Zeke go in several hours ago.

Immediately, I started to look for signs as to where he went. But I was no tracker, and I wasn't seeing any obvious footprints or indications as to whether Zeke had kept going forward, or if he had veered off in another direction. Maybe I should have brought Michonne with me.

It didn't matter now. I would just have to keep going this way and hope that Zeke had left some bread crumbs for me to follow. If I started to get the feeling that I wasn't going to find him, I could always turn back.

However, it seemed that luck was on my side today, at least for the moment.

About five minutes of walking later, I noticed something on a tree as I passed it. It was a simple line, carved into the tree. Upon examination, I quickly realized that it was too deep and too neat to be any sort of accident. That, and the fact that it was right where someone of Zeke's height would most likely make a marking like this, led me to believe that it was something he left for himself to help find his way back. It was on the side that he would see when walking back to camp after all. I smirked a bit as my finger traced over the marking. If this was Zeke's doing, then there would surely be more of them, hopefully leading me right to him.

Turning away from the line in the bark, I continued walking, my eyes paying extra attention to the trees now.

* * *

After another half an hour of walking, I was all but convinced that I was indeed on Zeke's trail now. I had found several walker corpses as I followed the markings on the trees, and as I found the bodies, the slashes that marked Zeke's path became coated in the dark blood of the undead. The wounds looked like his work too.

While this was all encouraging, I really hoped that I ran into Zeke soon. I already knew that we wouldn't be making it back before the hour ended, and Michonne was likely to get either worried or annoyed. Maybe both. Either way, I wanted to minimize the damage by making it back as soon as I could.

All thoughts of Michonne vanished from my mind, however, as I spotted something ahead of me. I sped up, jogging until I reached the low-hanging tree branch where the object, or rather _objects_ , of my attention hung from. They were some of Zeke's things. His coat, his shirt, the sheathes for his hatchets. My head tilted slightly to the side in confusion as I realized that only one of his hatchets was still inside its sheathe.

 _Where's the other one?_ I thought, staring intently at the empty sheathe.

"Carl," a familiar, throaty voice said, sounding like its owner was practically right behind me.

Of course, I had not heard any footsteps or sounds at all to give away this person's presence prior to him speaking, so as soon as I heard this I nearly jumped out of my own body, whirling around and drawing my dad's revolver from the holster on my hip before I even finished processing that it was Zeke.

"Oh, fuck _-_ " I exclaimed in utter surprise, taking a second before finishing it off with, " _you!"_ The revolver in my hand was halfway between being pointed at Zeke and not. "You creepy asshole; you scared the shit out of me!" I admonished as I holstered my dad's revolver once again, taking a deep breath as I attempted to calm my racing heart.

"What are you doing out here?" Zeke asked, his tone the same expressionless one with which he had said my name. Typical that he would have no apology for the person he almost gave a fucking heart attack. I looked at him, really taking in his appearance now, since I had been too busy getting scared out of my wits before.

The first thing I noticed was that he was shirtless, which made sense considering I found his shirt. The next thing I noticed was that he was very sweaty, and rather dirty too. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't notice he was holding a hatchet in his hand until after all of that, considering that's definitely what I should have noticed first. It's just... he was _so shirtless_ and _so sweaty._ I felt like I was going to be pretty sweaty soon too as I felt myself getting hot underneath my clothes. _What I wouldn't give to take off my shirts and give Zeke a nice big hug-_

"Carl! You deaf? I asked what you're doing out here," Zeke tried again, cutting off my inappropriate thoughts. However, it really didn't help, and the way he raised his voice at me was somehow turning me on more.

 _What the fuck is wrong with me?!_

"I-I... uh, was... looking for you?" I mumbled, fumbling with my words and somehow turning what was supposed to be a simple statement into a question.

Zeke's blank face morphed into more of a bewildered one, and he slowly replied with, "Okay... Why?" asking a question of his own.

 _Oh my god, his sweaty muscles are my kryptonite. I can't hold a conversation with him until he puts a damn shirt on._

"Okay, would you put a damn shirt on?!" I suddenly snapped, echoing my thoughts. Reaching behind me, I grabbed his shirt off the tree branch and threw it at him. He looked genuinely surprised, but he caught the shirt nonetheless and started to put it on, after he had sheathed his hatchet. I moved out of his way and crossed my arms, refusing to look at him anymore until his torso was clothed. "You've been gone for hours, and I wanted to make sure you weren't dead. Okay, asshole?" I explained without looking at him, hostility lacing my voice.

"You know, I think I remember telling you not to come look for me unless we were leaving. Is that the case? Is Michonne even up?" Zeke asked critically.

"Of course she is! I wouldn't have left if she was still asleep," I replied indignantly, shooting him a glare. He had both his shirt and his coat on now, and was starting to put his sheathes back on as well, facing away from me.

"Well, I guess we should get back then," he said, turning to face me again after both of his hatchets were on their places on his back.

"Why were you even out here in the first place? And why are you all sweaty? Did you just decide that it looked like a nice night to shirtlessly slay some walkers?" I asked, the last question a bit mocking.

"I wasn't-" he began, only to shake his head and try again. "I only had my hatchet when you saw me because I heard you crashing through the woods and thought there might be a bear coming through," he shot back snidely, his voice and expression remaining neutral despite the words.

"Fuck you. I don't even know what I was thinking, coming out here," I muttered, the last part directed more at myself than at him. There was no point in continuing this conversation anymore, in me even being out here. I never should have followed him in the first place. Turning away, my gaze lingered on the ground before fixing onto the woods ahead of me, in the direction of camp. I was about to start walking back there when Zeke surprised me.

"You were worried," he stated, which I bitterly acknowledged was correct. He paused a moment before asking, "Why?"

This annoyed me, almost going so far as to make me angry. Looking back at him, I said, "Don't play stupid. You know why. I-" _Care about you,_ I finished internally, unable and unwilling to speak the words aloud. After I was finished holding back from saying how I really felt, I tried again, saying, "You're part of our group. It's never just gonna go unnoticed when you run off in the middle of the night."

Zeke looked away after this, and I could tell he was thinking. Though I sure as hell didn't know what. "You're really not gonna tell me what you've been doing this whole time?" I asked, persisting for answers.

"It really doesn't matter," he replied, his eyes falling back on me as he spoke.

"Why do you do that? You push us away. You act like you're not with us, but you _are._ You're only the outcast because that's what you make yourself."

He didn't say anything at first, simply staring at me blankly for a few moments. Then his less than adequate reply came. "We should get back." Not wasting any time, he started to walk.

However, he didn't get very far, and I stepped out in front of him before he could pass me. "Wait," I demanded, holding my hand up in the universal gesture for "stop." My blue eyes locked on to those dark vortexes of his, and surprisingly, he did stop. "If you're not gonna tell me anything else, can you at least tell me what I did? You've been giving me the cold shoulder ever since yesterday at the train station… I apologized for what I said, and I know that you're not that sensitive. So what is it?"

Zeke sighed and looked away, just generally seeming tired of talking to me. His hand ran over his head and to the back of it, scratching in what I assumed was a frustrated way. "You didn't do anything, Carl. We're fine," he said as he glanced back at me.

I knew immediately that I made a face at those words, because Zeke made one back at me. Only his was what I took to be a cross between surprised and guilty, while I imagined mine was a mixture of disbelief and anger. "Yeah? You could've _fucking_ fooled me," I practically spat, trying to make eye contact with him. When he avoided my gaze, one of my arms came up and shoved him out of pure frustration.

He didn't resist much, stumbling backwards even though I hadn't pushed him all that hard. Now he did finally look at me, his face blank as ever once again. The emotions he had briefly shown were gone as fast as they had arrived. "Are you done?" he asked, not showing even a hint of anger despite me getting physical with him. His unfazed attitude only made me even angrier.

"No," I answered, stepping towards him. "I'm not." Again I shoved him, harder this time. I was just trying to get a reaction out of him at this point. He let it happen again, backpedaling a few more steps.

"Okay," he started, still sounding completely calm and composed. His expression remained neutral too, though he scrutinized me with his gaze. After a few moments of looking at me, he said, "You're trying to piss me off," seemingly as a realization. My face must have betrayed me at that, because he smirked. "Well, I don't really know how that helps you, but go ahead and give it your best shot."

Grinding my teeth in frustration, I stared Zeke down for a good minute. "It's better than you ignoring me, and basically acting like I'm dead to you," I retorted, hearing the anger and irritation in my own voice. Even though Zeke had seen through my plan, I shoved him again. "At least if you're pissed off, it's _something."_ Another shove after those words. "You know, I don't understand you. You say that you want to be friends, but after one stupid argument, you act like I killed your fucking dog."

"I think my reaction would be a little different if you killed my dog," Zeke responded quickly, and I could tell he still wasn't taking the conversation seriously.

"You almost left!" I shouted as I gave him another shove, probably the hardest one yet. My voice was filled with more disappointment, anguish, and fury than I intended, but the look on Zeke's face made it worth it. His unaffected facade broke, and he looked guilty again. "And I know that I pretty much told you to, but _you knew_ that I didn't mean it," I continued, much more quietly this time. My eyes closed for a moment, and my head shook a few times. "I just can't believe that after everything, you would leave over _that._ " My tone was practically a whisper at the last sentence.

Zeke didn't say anything at first, looking off to the side in thought. "It wasn't… over _that,_ " he said slowly, his gaze falling from the trees to the ground.

"What?" I asked immediately, confused.

"It wasn't about what you said, Carl," he elaborated, his eyes still averted from me.

"Then why were you gonna leave?" I questioned, despite already suspecting the answer. "Because of Terminus?"

Hesitantly, Zeke looked back up at me as he answered, "Yes," with a few nods.

Annoyance poked at me with his confirmation of my suspicions. "So, what, this whole time you've just been throwing a tantrum because you're mad that we decided to go?"

"No!" he quickly replied, sounding offended and looking that way too with the momentary glare on his face. His mouth remained open after the one word left it, like he had more to say but he hadn't chosen the words yet. He exhaled loudly in a sigh, before very slowly saying, "I am… _mad…_ at you, but I'm more mad at _myself."_ I could tell he wasn't done yet, so I didn't try to interrupt, just watching him as I waited for whatever he was gonna say next. I could also tell that he was very reluctant to say whatever it was, and he was avoiding eye contact again.

"I should have left. At the train station, hell, _before_ the train station!" he finished, his voice raising at the end. He looked at me again after the words left him, gauging my reaction to them, I suppose.

Honestly, _I_ couldn't even fully gauge my reaction to the words, a multitude of emotions rising up within me. The most apparent one was sadness though, and it only increased as I quietly said, "You did leave before, remember?" However, I wasn't done yet. "I thought we were past this, Zeke, but I guess not. If you wanna be alone so badly, maybe you should be," I continued, fighting back tears as I forced myself to speak the words. "No one is keeping you here. Just go, if that's what you want."

Zeke's face contorted in a vicious glare, surprising me. "Don't… Don't you _dare_ throw that at me. _You! You_ are keeping me here! You're the whole _goddamn_ reason I stayed!" he yelled, an accusing finger pointed at me. He was literally shaking with anger. My emotions, on the other hand, had just done a complete 180, going from sadness to almost pure bliss.

I was the reason Zeke had stayed. _Me._ It felt almost like I had won a prize or something. I had made Zeke care about me. After all the fights and the struggling to get through to him, he genuinely cared about me.

" _Fuck!_ "

The sudden profanity jerked me out of my thoughts, and I looked up to see Zeke with his back turned to me, facing a tree and shaking his hand a few times like people tended to do when they punched something as hard as a large tree. I tried to suppress my happy feelings a bit, quickly going to him.

"Hey, don't do that," I murmured as I reached him, as if he hadn't already assaulted the tree. He didn't oppose when I carefully took his hand to examine it, but he stayed with his back facing me. His hand didn't look too bad(not that I was a doctor or anything), though his knuckles were bleeding slightly. "So that's why you were mad at me… and at you. You care about me-" I began.

"Too much," he interjected with a mutter, still refusing to look at me.

"-and you don't want to," I finished, trying not to smile. My fingers traced small circles in the back of his hand now that I was done examining it, but he either didn't notice or didn't care enough to pull away.

"Being with you and Michonne is one thing. I mean, I _shouldn't_ be, but it's different. A whole group… a settlement of people… I can't," he said, slowly extracting his hand from my grip and turning to sit against the tree. His knees stayed arched in front of him, with his arms folded and rested on them. "I can't go to Terminus, Carl."

"Are you worried you're not gonna fit in or something? I know it's been a while since you've been around a lot of people, but-" I started, only to be cut off.

"No, that's not what I mean. You're not getting it. I _can't_ go to Terminus," he repeated, his tone having a sense of urgency.

 _Maybe if you would stop being so damn vague, I would get it,_ I thought, but I didn't dare say anything like that. Not when I was actually getting him to talk to me. Instead, I tried a softer approach. Crouching down in front of him, I lightly rested my hands on his arms. He actually looked at me this time, no longer avoiding my gaze. "Why? Tell me. And don't… say I won't understand, because I will if you just tell me," I murmured as gently as I could.

Zeke watched me for what felt like a long time before he said anything. Those dark eyes of his bore into mine, searching me for… something. Then he broke the prolonged eye contact and started to speak. "I am like a bomb to _everyone_ around me. I don't explode right away, not every time, but eventually… _eventually_ I do. And people in my vicinity get hurt, or they get killed," he said quietly. He hadn't been looking at me as he spoke, but he did as he continued. "I didn't know it at first, but I do now. I will always need to explode. And it will _always_ just be a matter of time until everyone around me ends up dead. That's why I'm not supposed to be around people. That's why I can't go to Terminus."

All of this left Zeke's mouth calmly and at a rather low volume, but there was more pain in his eyes than I had ever seen there before. I didn't pity him. That would only insult me, and I knew he was the same way. However, his words did strike something within me. I understood now, why it was so hard for him to just be with Michonne and I. Why he left in the first place.

Even though I didn't feel sorry for him, I couldn't help but think about how lonely he must have been, for so long. That, along with the pain I could see in him, saddened me. It was at that moment that I decided I was going to do whatever I had to do to fix Zeke. I wouldn't let him continue on with this warped perception he had of himself. "Zeke… _No,_ " I responded firmly, shaking my head. "I don't believe that at all. You're a _good person,_ " I said vehemently.

Zeke chuckled, but it was an empty laugh, lacking all the joy and amusement that laughs were supposed to contain. "You don't know me, Carl," he stated, his gaze locked onto mine as he said it.

"I know all I need to know. You saved my life! And not in some easy, accidental way either. You fought off a lot of walkers to do it. You could've just walked away; most people would've. I mean, I had no idea you were even there. But you stayed, risked _your life_ for me, when you didn't even know me," I reminded him.

"You can't judge me off of one thing I've done. There have been other things… bad things. Saving you doesn't make up for a single one of them," he said dismissively, his head shaking.

Sighing, I broke eye contact with Zeke briefly as I thought of how to word what I needed to say. What I needed him to know. Though it didn't take long, and a second later I was gazing back into those dark brown orbs of his. "Zeke… I need you to hear this," I began, my tone gravely serious. "I. Don't. Care." His eyes widened in surprise at the words. "You're not scaring me off. No matter how big and bad of a monster you tell me you are… No matter what you've done… No matter how many times you tell me that hanging around you is gonna get me killed… I don't care. You're not getting rid of me that easily. I don't know what happened to you before we met, and I'm not going to until you tell me. But Michonne and I are strong. Like you. You won't get us killed. We are all gonna go to Terminus, and whatever is waiting for us there, we will face it _together._ I heard what you said, but the place is not gonna go up in flames as soon as you walk through the gate. If anything, they'll be stronger once they have you in their ranks. Once they have _us,_ " I finished, hoping Dad would be proud of me for the short speech, despite it not quite being as good as the ones he gave.

Zeke's face went from surprised to completely shocked after I was done. His gaze fell into his lap as I imagined he was processing everything I had just said. After a minute of silence, he spoke. "Carl, I… I don't deserve to be there," he muttered softly, voice almost a whisper. Those weren't the words I was hoping to hear, but I didn't get discouraged. I was on a roll, and if Zeke wasn't convinced yet, then my job wasn't done.

"Don't be an idiot. The sign said 'for all.' That means you too, asshole," I replied gently, despite the harsher words. He still didn't look up at me. "Look at me," I continued in the same voice, my hands going from resting on his arms to cupping the sides of his face. I kept my touch as tender as possible as I raised his head, physically making him meet my gaze. Those amazing, dark eyes of his were filled to the brim with guilt and sorrow. He hated himself. "If you need forgiveness, or to confess, I'll give that to you. Whenever you're ready."

"You don't even know what I've done," he said dejectedly.

"It doesn't matter," I told him truthfully, without hesitation, a smile on my face. His eyes widened again, but this time they shined too, like he might actually have tears in them.

As my emotions overcame me, my arms slipped around the back of Zeke's neck, and I pulled him in for a hug. Apparently, I was quick enough to surprise him, because there was absolutely no resistance. He could have easily kept me at a distance since his knees were in my way, but instead of him using them to block me, he did nothing as I slipped between his legs. I was fully pressed against him, my face buried in his hair, and his head against my chest. At first he tensed up, and I was worried that after all of that, he might still shove me off. Only he didn't, and a moment later, he relaxed into the touch, his arms wrapping around my waist and pulling me even tighter against him.

Sighing in content and relief, I breathed in his scent, unsure of when I would get another chance to be this close to him. The feeling of his arms wrapped securely around me felt so good, that I didn't ever want the moment to end. I realized now that what I said to him was unequivocally true, with no limitations. Anything he had done, I would forgive him for. He could tell me that he was the one who started the damn apocalypse, and I probably wouldn't even bat an eye before saying the words. Because as little as I knew about Zeke, I knew that he was more to me than just a friend. Even if that's all I was to him. So I took another deep breath, inhaling more of this boy that I cared so profoundly about. Then I fixed my lips close to his ear, and I whispered the words again, just to make sure he knew.

"It doesn't matter."

* * *

 **Hello, everybody! It's the slowest-updating writer on this site, back from the dead. I seriously did not mean to neglect this story for like a year, but life did that thing it does and got a bit hectic. I'm sure most of you probably thought I abandoned it, but that wasn't the case at all. I have always loved this story, and even though it wasn't a priority, it was in the back of my head the whole time. I feel horrible for making all of you wonderful readers wait as long as I did, but I'm back now. I promise I won't leave this story without an update for that long again. Anyways, I would just love to hear from you guys. Drop a review if you're still here after all this time, and I will love you forever. Feel free to yell at me for taking so long xD**

 **notmuchmoretosay:** **Haha, I know. Everyone loves Mama Michonne xD**

 **The Sorrowful Deity:** **You're very right xD**

 **IWalkOnMyOwn:** **Mwhahaha, I love writing it. It's fun to play with your guys' feelings a bit ;P**

 **laverneanimemaster360:** **NEVER! XD**

 **narutokid16:** **Thank you so much! Hope you still love this fic just as much a year later xD**

 **ougley:** **I'm glad :)**

 **nightwatchers2:** **Hehe, define "soon"…**

 **Musashi:** **No, actually, not even a little bit xD. Despite my long absence, this story is like my child. I would never be cool with someone else continuing it for me.** **But I'm glad you liked it enough to ask.**

 **Gilyflower:** **Wish granted :P**

 **DampishPoet:** **UPDATED**


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